West Highlands – Untamed Wilderness

Wild West – the name really fits Scotland’s western Highlands. Few residents, and magnificent scenery. A truly unique landscape.

A mix of high mountains, dark lochs, green hills and barren stone deserts defines the West Highlands. Sea lochs cutting deep into the land create peninsulas in the west that are barely inhabited at all – such as the sparsely populated Applecross.

There is a well-built road connecting the larger settlements, such as Ullapool, with the rest of the world, but turn off it and you can drive along narrow single-track roads through truly dramatic scenery.

This sense of solitude, together with mountains such as the Beinn Eighe massif in Torridon – whose highest peak reaches a good thousand metres – make the Western Highlands a perfect area for walkers and climbers. Ullapool is also a great base for some fantastic routes, such as into the An Teallach massif.

Along the west coast there are also places where, with a great deal of effort, plant life has been coaxed into flourishing: Inverewe Garden is the best-known example. Otherwise, it remains a bleak, green – but hugely impressive – landscape.

If you want to say you’ve truly seen Scotland, this wild and uniquely beautiful part of it is simply not to be missed.

The great loch of the holy Rufus

The West Highlands are also home to Scotland’s fourth-largest loch – Loch Maree. It takes its name from St Maelrubha (St Rufus), who is said to have had a retreat here on Eilean Ma-Ruibhe. The loch is only poorly accessible, and few tourists find their way here, so the nature around the water remains remarkably unspoilt (which unfortunately also means large numbers of midges).

After St Columba, Maelrubha is the second most important saint for the Highlanders. A good many places and churches are dedicated to him – particularly in this area.

Key places

Compared with Sutherland to the north, the West Highlands are somewhat better populated. Dingwall in the east, for instance, has over 5,000 residents, while Ullapool in the west still has around 1,300. Ullapool also plays an important role as the ferry port to the Outer Hebrides.