Sutherland is the least populated place in Britain; and while journeying north to reach the isolated community of Durness, the emptiness and desolation may prove slightly unnerving for city-slickers out on a rare trip north. For this reason, when the wide-eyed traveller finally rides into the wee village of Durness (population 400) it takes on the proportions and atmosphere of somewhere much, much bigger. It’s surprisingly cosmopolitan, too, with visitors having struggled through the wilderness from seemingly every last corner on earth. And please, there is no need to point out that the earth has no corners, because the folk camping at Durness are definitely from them. There is even a sign at Sango Sands campsite that confirms where they are all from and just how far they’ve come to get here.
Travelling through the beautiful, brutal scenery to this top north-western corner of Scotland is a sensational experience, and taken slowly (stopping off at the other Cool Camping sites along the west coast, perhaps) this amazing journey will surprise, delight, shock, and provoke any other emotion it is possible to feel from wandering through such high, wild places. All have their wicked way with your soul, but Scotland saves the very best for the very last, when you reach Sutherland.
Once any sober mind has made it past Ullapool to Durness, it will be hard-pressed to recall any other place in Britain that quite captures this same essence of wilderness. Just rock and water line the route north for mile upon mile and white-tailed eagles watch your progress with beady eyes, waiting to pick over your bones, should misfortune befall you. To put this relentless emptiness into context, it’s about the same distance from Ullapool to Durness as it is from Birmingham to Manchester, but there are less than a thousand people living on the land between. The scenery is absolutely awesome, and you never ever want the journey to end, but are almost relieved when civilisation finally comes into view.
This is the setting for Sango Sands. It wouldn’t matter if this campsite doubled up as the local bus shelter, for it offers succour to the weary traveller when it seemed that the world had ended, which, in effect, it does just here. Sango Sands teeters on the northern edge of Britain in glorious fashion, a fitting end to the trek through all that emptiness – a view out to infinity.
If you can drag your eyes away from the view of mountains on two-and-a-half sides, and the endless ocean on the other three (really, this is fact, not an optical illusion) then the campsite itself is fairly ordinary. But you can’t and it isn’t. There are caravans littering the site in places, but they are invisible because the scenery is that big. There are several toilet blocks, and we are sure they are absolutely fine, but despite several visits to Sango Sands our intrepid(ish) crew cannot remember a thing about them. All they can recall, collectively, is the astounding journey to get there and the mind-blowing view from the site.
Sango Sands is at the end of a very long road, through the most incredible scenery in the land, but don’t think of this as a fitting finale, so much as a fantastic half-time break on the journey of a lifetime. That is, if you can bring yourself to head home again.
