Into the Wild

Inverie, Scotland

A couple of years ago I stumbled across an article about the Old Forge Pub being the most remote pub in Scotland and mainland Britain. Intrigued by the article, I read more and discovered all I could about the town the pub is in, Inverie. Inverie is the main village on the Peninusla of Knoydart which is in the Lochaber district on the West Coast of the Scottish Highlands. We learned before and after our travels to the peninsula that even a lot of Scottish citizens don’t know about this place. We’d tell them that we went to Inverie, and they wouldn’t know what we were talking about! The peninsula isn’t easy to get to, you can’t travel by car. There are two ways there, take a ferry from Mallaig or hike in. The hike takes roughly two days and most people start from Kinlochhourn, but there are a couple other routes that can be used, if you’re interested, you can find out more about that here. We opted for the ferry option!

We had to wake up early to drive an hour from Portree to the ferry terminal at Armandale and catch our 8:40AM ferry. We took that ferry (about an hour) to Mallaig and then had to find a place to park our car before heading over to catch the 10:30 ferry from Mallaig to Inverie. We were a little worried about finding somewhere to park, but it actually wasn’t an issue at all. There is a parking lot just west of the train station where you can leave your car for free, but it fills up and when we went to park, there were not any spots available. It wasn’t an issue though because if you follow the main road East, there are parking spots along the water and the closest ones have time limits but if you go a little further, there are spots where you can leave your car for up to 7 days, so it’s quite easy to drive to Mallaig and stay in Inverie for as long as a week if you’d like. We didn’t have any trouble finding one of these spots, but it was also pretty early in the day. Unlike the ferries we’ve taken before, the ferry to Inverie is a tiny one with a few benches outside and a little cabin on the inside. It’s a pretty comfortable boat and it’s a beautiful trip!

Upon arrival at Inverie, were were tired! We got off of the ferry and had about 3/4 of a mile to walk to the Knoydart Foundation Bunkhouse (a hostel). The walk was beautiful, a little long with our backpacks, but we made it. If you want to get a ride to your accommodations on the island, you need to plan that in advance, there are very few options, and not really any last minute options. On the way to the hostel, we were hungry so we stopped at Knoydart Pottery and Tea Room for a little breakfast. I had a scone and it was amazing, Kim had a breakfast sandwich which was also very good. The tea room was so cute but we were unfortunately too sleepy to remember to take pictures of the inside and outside of the cafe. But seriously - if you go - stop in and get their berry scone! After that, we were able to check into the hostel and then go for a little hike!

The hike was gorgeous, Inverie is so remote and it would be hard to find better views and a more peaceful atmosphere. We had a little trouble finding the exact route that the woman at the information desk suggested, but we got along just fine on the path we found. There are definitely hikes for very advanced hikers, but there are also easy paths as well. It started to rain a little bit, but we didn’t mind! Scotland is gorgeous in the rain and in the sunshine. As we were wondering if it was time to turn around or not we came across two highland cows! It was really exciting, but we weren’t sure how close we should get to them. Since they have horns and we were in a very remote location and hadn’t seen people in a VERY long time, we decided to turn back. In all though, we ended up walking about 7 miles but it definitely didn’t feel that long since the walk was so serene. After the walk, it was time to shower and get ready for dinner at The Old Forge.

Our dinner at Old Forge was good but what we really enjoyed was the company. There were a lot of other hikers there that night and we ended up drinking with a group of Scottish men that take this trip together every year. They were a lot of fun! They ended up taking a guitar off of the wall and playing some tunes, the owner of the pub was happy enough to turn the music off so we could enjoy a little sing-along.
Some Gossip: From what we hear, the locals aren’t very fond of the owner of The Old Forge. It used to be run by a local man, but a Belgian man bought the pub in 2012. He was a little rude to us, but it didn’t put a damper on our time here. What really made the night were the other tourists, so hopefully when you go to stay you’ll run into a group as fun as the ones we met. There is a little video of our time below, please excuse our singing!

We didn’t get much sleep in the bunkhouse but our new friends did make us some smashed banana on toast and ramen to soak up the whisky. Smashed banana on toast sounds weird, but it’s actually quite good. . .at least after a few beers and some whisky ! We had to get up early that morning to make our ferry back to the mainland but we were sad to leave! Hopefully we’ll have an opportunity to come back one day to this beautiful part of the world. ~Annette

The town of Inverie - this picture shows about 80% of the buildings, the rest is woodlands and paths.