Moidart (Gaelic: Mùideart: muddy sea loch) – known as the Rough Bounds and bounded to the east and south Loch Shiel and the River Shiel. Its western edge is bounded by Loch Moidart and the Sound of Arisaig. Its northern boundary is formed by Loch Ailort and Loch Eilt. Its eastern interior is mountainous, with Beinn Odhar Bheag (2894 feet) and Rois-Bheinn (2894 feet) being the highest mountains. Like Ardnamurchan, it has been designated as a National Scenic Area for its outstanding scenery and landscape.
Moidart is a wild and beautiful place and as part of the “Rough Bounds”, it is famous for its wildness and inaccessibility and because if its remoteness, it remained strongly Gaelic-speaking until the mid-20th century. Indeed, it wasn’t until 1966 when access to one of its major settlements, Glenuig, was possible by public road. Today Moidart is served by a good network of roads, providing visitors with good access to its glens, mountains, woodlands and shoreline.
The village of Glenuig is home to the Glenuig Hall, a community owned venue that regularly hosts music and cultural events by both local and travelling artists. Also in Glenuig is the Moidart History House, where you can find out more about the history that the area is steeped in. Head along the road west from Glenuig and you pass a beautiful sandy beach in Samalaman Bay, before reaching the road end, where you can park and walk to the crofting settlement of Smirisary and then onto a remote white sandy beach opposite Eilean Coille. The views of the Small Isles of Eigg and Rùm as you walk along tis coastline are absolutely amazing.
In the south-west corner of Moidart, you will find ruins of Castle Tioram (pronounced Cheerum) which sit on the tidal island of Eilean Tioram (the Dry Island). This 13th Centaury fortress is the traditional seat of the Clanranald branch of Clan Donald and has been unoccupied since the Jacobite rising of 1715. Winston Churchill described Castle Tioram as one of the most beautiful places he knew and it is well worth a visit, to just walk out to the island at low tide or to walk the Silver Trail in search of Elizabethan treasure.
Castle Tioram is not far from the village of Acharacle, which although in Ardnamurchan, serves as the main centre for Moidart, where you can find a village store, craft shop, post office, café, garage and a doctor’s surgery.
