CountrysideHighlandNational Trust for Scotland4.4
Free entry for National Trust members
This place is cared for by the National Trust for Scotland, a separate charity. Under the INTO reciprocal visiting arrangement, National Trust members from England, Wales and Northern Ireland get free standard entry. Show your current membership card at admissions.
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Free for everyone.
No charge for anyone.
Large free car park at Balmacara Square, just off the A87 (IV40 8DJ), and another by the Plockton visitor centre (IV52 8TW), which fills in summer. Smaller free car parks at Lochalsh Woodland Walks, Coral Beach, Duirinish, Murchison's Monument, Kirkton and Loch Achaidh na h-Inich. Disabled parking at Lochalsh House by arrangement.
Balmacara Estate covers 2,500 hectares of the Lochalsh peninsula, three miles short of the Skye Bridge, and is the National Trust for Scotland's showcase of a working Highland crofting landscape: moorland hills between lochs, oak and birch woods and crofting townships such as Drumbuie, Duirinish and Plockton along an intricate coast. Coille Mhòr is a fragment of Scotland's temperate rainforest thick with lichens and ferns, 13 orchid species flower on the croftland, and red squirrels, pine martens, otters and dragonflies share the ground with Highland cattle. Seventeen miles of trails include the Lochalsh Woodland Walks, the Coral Beach of crushed maerl, the coast path from Duirinish to Port an Eorna and Murchison's Monument looking across Loch Alsh to Skye. Dogs are welcome throughout the estate under control, especially around livestock. Reviewers rate the woodland walks and their views highly and say most drivers race past on the way to Skye. Tips from visitors: start at Balmacara Square, where the free car park, shops, cafe and Steadings Gallery are, and expect steep drops on some woodland paths.
The Balmacara visitor centre is closed and the Plockton visitor centre is due to reopen; check the NTS page. The shops and cafe at Balmacara Square are independently run.
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Dog friendly
Starts and ends at Duirinish, car park by Duirinish station; 1 3/4 miles (3km), 1 hour, moderate with one steep section and a short scramble, 41m ascent.
