Ardnamurchan: The Beach at the End of The World

Scotland’s most-westerly mainland point has a surprising origin

Portuairk. All photos by Tim Ward

There’s something enticing about driving to the end of the road. Especially when the road ends at the Atlantic Ocean, on the westernmost point of the UK mainland. Although Teresa (my beloved spouse and co-flâneur) and I have wandered through the most remote parts of the Scottish Highlands for eight of the last 12 summers, we have never before made it to Ardnamurchan.

Why not? Well, we simply never noticed Ardnamurchan was there on the map — a 50-square-mile/130-square-kilometer peninsula that bulges out into the Atlantic, just northwest of the Island of Mull. This vast chunk of wilderness is home to just 2,000 people, with only some 200 residents in the western coastal communities of Kilchoan, Sanna, and Portuairk. Portuairk, the mostest-farthest-westest of them, has fewer than forty inhabitants.

Portuairk lies between Sanna and the Ardnamurchan lighthouse, upper left. It’s too small for this map.

Was there possibly any reason to go there, other than that we had never been there before? Remoteness itself is actually quite enticing for Teresa and me. What also sold us on Ardnamurchan was that it was surprisingly accessible from where we were…