Morar

White Sands and Ways In

The sand along the shore at Morar is white, the water above it clear, with rocky headlands framing a view west to the islands of Eigg and Rum. This is the Silver Sands, and it is what most people come for. From Camusdarach, just south of where the River Morar reaches the sea, the Cuillin of Skye come into the picture as well. Camusdarach appears in the film Local Hero, and it is still used for swimming, rock-pooling and long slow walks.

Behind the beaches the village runs along the older coastal road, the B8008, while the A830 now carries through traffic past it. Morar station sits on Columba Road with three free parking spaces, a help point and a bench: no ticket office, no toilets, no refreshments. Trains on the West Highland line still stop here, and Shiel Buses run through on the Mallaig routes. Mallaig itself, with its harbour and ferries, is three miles up the road.

Music, Meals and Deep Water

The Morar Hotel, built in 1902 as the Station Hotel, is the place for food and drink in the village, its dining room facing west over the sands towards Rum and Eigg. The Silver Sands Restaurant serves Cullen skink, Scottish smoked salmon and haggis bon-bons with a whisky dip, then fish and chips, steak and ale pie made with Scottish beef, chicken or aloo chana curry, and sticky toffee pudding to finish. The composer Arnold Bax spent his winters here for twelve years from 1928, arriving by train and working through the cold months; he finished much of his music in the hotel, including his Third Symphony. A plaque on the building records that he "completed many of his finest scores in this hotel."

The other reason to be here is the water on the far side of the village. Loch Morar is the deepest freshwater loch in Britain, dropping to 310 metres in an east-west glacial trough that runs inland, its water unusually clear and low in nutrients. Wooded islands near its western end carry native Scots pine among birch, holly, rowan and oak. The loch has its own monster, Morag, presented locally as a relative of the Loch Ness one; Brinacory Island is named as the place she has supposedly been seen.

Paths Along Shore and Loch

Walkers have two obvious routes. The path along the Silver Sands runs three and a half kilometres to the quiet beaches at Bourblach and Sgeir Dubh, though it is boggy and not always clear underfoot. The longer walk follows Loch Morar east from the Bracorina road end to Tarbet on Loch Nevis, nine kilometres one way, past the restored Chapel of Inverbeg and the remains of abandoned settlements. For children, Silversands Trekking at Glenrowan Farm takes riders out onto the beach on its horses and ponies, matching the mount to the rider, from the age of five.

Jacobites in Morar

The history here is Jacobite. In June 1746 Lord Lovat hid on Eilean Ban in Loch Morar while government forces brought boats up the River Morar and hauled them overland to reach him; he was taken, and the following April became the last man to be publicly beheaded in Britain. Bonnie Prince Charlie passed through the same country that summer, crossing the River Morar with patrols searching the district behind him.

The Cross Above the Village

On the hill above the village stands an iron cross, raised by parishioners in 1965 to replace an older wooden one. It looks down over the white sand and the loch, which is more or less what anyone who stays here ends up doing too.