Your shoe bound foot sinks into the pristine expanse before you. It has been years since you’ve been in this situation. You feel like a child that has made a new discovery. You release your feet from their prisons and venture onto the whitest sand you have seen since your honeymoon. It is cold but soft like cotton. This must be a dream.
Leaving the car and boardwalk behind you, you feel the wind whip the tangling hair around your face and praise the chosen warm outfit of the day. As the sea retreats from the coast it leaves an untouched surface of shoreline. Even the grey clouds, that occasionally block the sun’s path to the sand, do not stop the glow of its purity. All at once you wish you could float so you can leave this piece of perfection as is and yet you are filled with joy to feel its beauty beneath you.
As you emerge from between the sand dunes you see the exceptionally calm and clear water ahead. This place is anything but normal. The sun peeks out from behind the racing clouds overhead and the whole scene explodes with colour. A hop, skip and a jump from the shoreline the waters turn turquoise. TURQUOISE!
This is my highlight from Day 7 of our recent trip to Scotland to drive the NC500 route. Can you actually believe this place is in Scotland. Scotland, Uk. The United Kingdom!
Before any kind of suspicion arrives in your mind, dear reader, my disbelief is not in some way an insult to Scotland. Of course these beautiful places can be found anywhere in the world. However, my shock, even now, lies in the fact that it has taken me over the 34 years that I have resided on this planet and in this country, to come to that conclusion. With the filters available online and on Instagram, it is often the case of finding something before you that looks nothing like the images online. Which is why I was so pleasantly surprised and shocked that Achmelvich Bay is even better than any picture I had previously seen. Although our photos look pretty damn good! ‘A’ List photographers that we are.
I have been exceptionally lucky in my life to have travelled to some pretty stunning shorelines in my life.
Cape Tribulation in Australia. Where the Daintree rainforest meets the cool blue waters that also house the Great Barrier Reef.
Three islands in the Maldives. The white sand mixed with crushed shells and coral.
The vast beaches of the Dominican Republic.
The list goes on.
But somehow, Scotland’s Achmelvich Bay transfixed my soul. Could it be the amount of time (4 years) since our last pristine beach visit? Or the freedom from the car on such a huge road trip?
Or could it quite simply be this…
Lockdown was bloody hard. 2020 and 2021 were hard. 2022 felt like it was one tentative step after the other. Watch out for potential landmines! The constant up and down nature of the news and information being thrown at us from all angles had a way of defeating, healing and crushing and restoring hope all at once. No one I know came out of those two years unscathed. And yet on that beach, it just disappeared.
It has to be said that for the few hours we paused our trip in that Bay, there were only four other visitors on the sand itself. Two braved the waters like we did. One lady stopped by for a chat. And another paddled up to her knees. In a way, Mr W and I felt like it was our own perfect paradise. It welcomed you like an old friend.
I have journeyed back to that beach many times since returning home. Albeit it from the luxury of my sofa. We know we will soon be returning to Scotland and its wondrous 500 mile route and even though there is so much more to see and explore, one thing is for sure, our feet will take us back to that paradise to once again feel in awe of this astounding country. That in itself is one thing to take from the uncertainty of life during the height of the pandemic. I have learned so much about the Uk and its pockets of joy. It came when we were forced to abandon trips abroad and opt for open spaces above all else. During the turmoil of Covid, I felt selfish to wonder if travel would ever feel the same again. Now I know the face of travel has changed for us in a huge way. We no longer only look outside our own country for escapism. We look at the country we are blessed to call home and the adventures that still await us.
The links for the itinerary and recap of this day are below. I hope one day you experience this magical route for yourself.
Framework Travel 