AT A GLANCE
Why go?
Loch an Ruathair is a long, quiet freshwater loch set on the wild edge of Sutherland, about three miles (5 km) north of the hamlet of Kinbrace. It sits within the treeless moorland of Achentoul Forest, where the single-track A897 and the Far North Line railway run shoulder to shoulder right along the water's edge on the drive between Helmsdale and the Flow Country.↗↗
There are no ticket booths, no car park attractions and no crowds here—this is a landscape loch you pass through, pull aside for, or glimpse from a train window. Its appeal is exactly that: open water framed by the rounded hills of Creag Sail a'Bhaithaich and Ben Griam Beg, the railway curving across the head of the loch, and the great peat wilderness of the Flow Country beginning just to the north.↗↗
A loch on the road and rail to the far north
Loch an Ruathair is one of the most photogenic pauses on the A897, the coast-to-coast Highland route that links Helmsdale with Melvich. Road and rail travel together for several miles here before parting at Forsinard, so the loch is equally a train-spotter's and a driver's delight. Travellers on the Far North Line out of Inverness often catch it at its best—a bright band of water running beside the track, hills softening the horizon, the line itself leading the eye north toward Wick and Thurso.
