A Secret Peninsula

In the far west of the Highlands, the Rough Bounds of Knoydart are remote, rugged and richly rewarding

- JOHN J. PRICE

WE all love to get away from it all, and there are few places further away from “it” than the Rough Bounds of Knoydart.

This remote peninsula can only be reached by boat or arduous stravaigs along Loch Nevis in the south and Loch Hourn in the north.

Nevis translates from Gaelic as “heaven” and Hourn as “hell”. Knoydart is sandwiched between the two, and it’s a metaphor that's all too easy to abuse. The views are sensational, like visiting a kind of paradise, but the long distances, the midgies and the weather can all feel like a feature of the other place.

I'd decided to fulfil a lifelong dream of climbing Ladhar Bheinn, a mountain with one of the furthest and most challenging walk-ins in Scotland — but what a route it is. Even the drive to the starting point at Kinloch Hourn is a contender for both the best and worst road in the country.

In some ways it’s a king amongst roads with spectacular lochs, grand vistas and towering mountains, yet after an initial pleasant section it descends into Hell (remember what Hourn means). The craterous road surface along and after Loch Cuaich is appalling and winds alarmingly up, down and around.

Giant slow-moving machinery enforces stoppages as it is manoeuvred with balletic precision through small gaps blasted in huge rock formations. Due to electricity pylon works the road might even be shut.

The final descent into Kinloch Hourn would challenge Indiana Jones, as it plunges steeply and quickly down a rocky gorge to sea level. Awesome and awful.

Suddenly, one arrives amid the grandeur of the glen, where a narrow finger of the sea beckons the walker on from the small village. This is the beginning of the walk-in along the south shore of Loch Hourn.