300. Terally Bay Beach

When I started this project in 2019 I had in mind that I would visit 50 or so Scottish beaches, then maybe 100. I never thought that almost seven years on I would still be working my way around the mainland and islands cataloguing my 300th beach. It’s been a life-changing adventure in many ways. Nerdy and over-ambitious of course, but full of memories, delight and moments of awe. I suppose I hoped that this milestone beach would be a heavyweight Highland classic or a spectacular Hebridean white-sand panorama. But maybe it’s fitting that my 300th beach is a modest, inauspicious and in all honesty, rather underwhelming beach in the far south west corner of the country. Many Scottish beaches are jaw-droppingly magnificent, and I’m lucky enough to have walked on most of them, but there are also dozens of modest village beaches and small rocky bays that don’t have instant Instagram appeal but which, in their own way, are full of intrigue and character. Every beach is somebody’s favourite. And maybe it’s this beach for the three sea anglers  who are just setting up their rods at the shore of the bay when I stop by. Like most Scottish beaches, Terally Bay has great views, is clean and is largely deserted.  The waves breaking on the shore here make the same calming sound as those breaking at the same time across the entire coast and on every single island beach. Walking along the shoreline here makes me feel just as alive as the other 299. So all in all, a fitting beach for the milestone, of which I feel very proud.