The hills are alive

THE tiny west Highland township of Elphin, north of Ullapool, stands out from the moorland landscape as a patchwork of bright green. Its rare fertility derives from a seam of limestone beneath the soil. Rank heath surrounds it as far as the eye can see and beyond that lie slabs of Lewisian gneiss, the oldest rocks in Europe, three billion years old. Home to about 60 souls, many of them crofting families, Elphin straddles the A835, until recently a road unremarkable for much other than the lonely beauty of the hills either side and the fish lorries from Lochinver that thunder southwards late at night.

In 2014, the road’s fortunes changed. A group of Highland businessmen conceived the North Coast 500, a looped tourist route that travels most of the coastal Highlands, passing Elphin and other crofting