168. Camas an Lighe

For my final day exploring Ardnamurchan I had two mega-walks planned and once again the weather gods had been kind with another scorching blue-sky day ahead.  This region of western Scotland was experiencing the best weather in the whole of the UK, with most of England and southern Scotland making do with rain and temperatures less than half the 22/23 degrees I was enjoying. Such is life. I took the long single track road heading out of the peninsula and up towards the village of Arivegaig where I parked at the end of a forest plantation.  The walk to Camas an Lighe, or Singing Sands, was to take me right through the heart of the plantation, and as a lover of forest walks, this was a perfect 4km hike. Towards the end of the forest track, a sign pinned to a fir points right saying ‘Beach’ and a few yards further on the trees give way to sand and rocks. The beach is renowned for the ‘singing’ quality of its sands, due to the presence of a unique silica in this region. I ventured up to admire the incredible rock formations at the end of the beach and made my way around the headland to two further coves. When the tide is out, you can walk to these small bays but with the tide coming in it was a case of scrambling up the rocks and following the feint path, which would eventually take me to remote Cal na Croise. On my return, it was back to the forest track and back the way I came.