Balnakeil Bay and Faraid Head Walk

The Balnakeil Bay and Faraid Head Walk explores one of the most beautiful and remote stretches of coastline on the Scottish mainland, crossing wide sandy beaches and dramatic dunes to the rocky, seabird-rich headland of Faraid Head, with views out to Cape Wrath itself.

The route starts from the car park at Balnakeil, reached via a minor road west from Durness that passes the Balnakeil Craft Village, a collection of artists' workshops and studios housed in former RAF buildings. The car park sits beside a ruined church and the imposing Balnakeil House, built in 1744 on the site of a monastery founded around 720 AD. From here, a gate leads onto the superb sandy beach of Balnakeil Bay, crossed to its far end, where a road built to service a Ministry of Defence training facility leads out towards the headland.

The road climbs away from the shore as the MOD station comes into view; just before its gate, the route turns right to follow a fence out to the cliffs, with a short detour to a cairn marking an excellent viewpoint. Along the clifftop, two large rocks rise from the water — a favoured spot for puffins in early summer — before the route cuts back through the dunes on faint sandy paths to rejoin the outward road, and retraces the beach back to the start. At low tide, walkers can instead continue past a small headland to a second beach and back along the sand to Balnakeil, avoiding the road entirely.

This is a magnificent, easy walk in fine weather, but the exposed dunes can whip up genuinely disorientating sandstorms in strong wind, and several visitors have found themselves walking backwards through stinging, wind-blown sand on the return leg — worth checking conditions before setting out on a blustery day, and watching for military vehicles using the access road.

The Balnakeil car park is free; a bus runs from Durness to the Balnakeil Craft Village, a short walk from the start.