Achnasheen

The Old Filling Station Cafe

The Midge Bite Café occupies the Old Filling Station on the A832, which tells you most of what you need to know about the scale of Achnasheen. Inside there is freshly ground coffee, Scottish ice cream, homemade cakes and soup, and a blackboard lunch that changes from day to day — sandwiches, baked potatoes, hot sandwiches, salads and specials, with vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free options marked. One visitor in February was brought a ploughman's on homemade focaccia; someone in July had a bacon-and-egg roll. There is an outdoor deck, parking, wheelchair access and highchairs, and a small shelf of local art, pottery, cosmetics and honey. A reviewer called it "an oasis in the middle of nowhere," which is close to a literal description.

That is much of the village. Achnasheen sits on the River Bran in the broad floor of Strath Bran, at the point where the western roads divide: the A832 carries on toward Kinlochewe and Gairloch, the A890 turns south for Glen Carron and Lochcarron. The river runs east from here into Loch Luichart, through a country of hills, forestry, crofts and open water.

Strath Bran and Ledgowan Lodge

Another place to eat and drink is Ledgowan Lodge, a Victorian hunting lodge a short walk from the station. It keeps a spacious restaurant and a bar stocked with Scottish whiskies, gin and drink from local distilleries; the kitchen describes its cooking as seasonal and local rather than by any fixed menu. The lodge makes use of its own past, running murder-mystery nights in the setting a shooting lodge lends them. Its bunkhouse takes walkers, who can use the bar or book a table.

A major draw is the hill. Fionn Bheinn rises straight from the village, and its route begins at the Achnasheen car park beside the landscaped village pond. It is a Munro of 934 metres, reached over roughly 12 kilometres and five or six hours, with 807 metres of ascent and a good deal of boggy, sometimes pathless ground along the Allt Achadh na Sìne and up Creagan na Laogh. In clear weather the summit gives you Liathach, Beinn Eighe, Slioch, the Fannichs, Loch Fannich and the Torridon mountains. The car park sits beside the station, so a Munro without a car is possible if the train times suit.

Fionn Bheinn and the Reserve Trails

The low-level walking is limited, and many other days out mean driving. Kinlochewe is about fifteen minutes west, and three kilometres beyond it the Beinn Eighe and Loch Maree Islands reserve has a visitor centre with two waymarked trails: the flat Pinecone trail and the higher Buzzard trail, which climbs to views of the Beinn Eighe ridge. Down at the shore of Loch Maree, the Coille na Glas-Leitir woodland walk turns up crossbills, siskins and dragonflies.

Achnasheen was a very small settlement before the railway. Only four Strathbran Estate cottages stood here before the line arrived; the oldest surviving house is a small building beside The Cottage that once held the shop of Murdo the Merchant and later took on the post office.

Cottages, Railway and a Lost Hotel

The station opened on 19 August 1870 on the Dingwall and Skye Railway. Its two-storey harled building still stands, along with the cast- and wrought-iron footbridge, and passenger trains on the Inverness–Kyle of Lochalsh line still call. There is a car park, toilets, waiting rooms, a help point and six cycle stands, but no ticket machine, no refreshments and no staff assistance. Buses are rare — a few Westerbus and Lochcarron Garage services, some running only a couple of days a week — so it is worth checking times before relying on them.

There was a grand station hotel too, designed by Alexander Ross in 1871 and extended in 1898, until fire took it and it was pulled down. A local story had its landlord, McIver, refusing Queen Victoria fresh horses on the Sabbath in 1877, though she passed through on a Wednesday and changed horses at Kinlochewe instead.

The Parliamentary Bridge

The Ledgowan Bridge still carries the A890 across the River Bran on a single stone span built between 1808 and 1819, part of a Parliamentary road toward Strome Ferry that took ten years to finish. The iron footbridge still gets its walkers, coming off the hill and back toward the station and the pond.