Brora campsite and Brora Golf Club: an NC500 review

Brora sits quietly on the east coast of Sutherland, an often overlooked stop on the NC500. Its beach is the equal of nearby Dornoch and visitors can sometimes have it to themselves. The Brora campsite, the Caravan and Motorhome Club site at the north of the village, is the reason a motorhome trip pays off here: park up, walk through the gate, and you are on the golf course and the dunes before the kettle has finished boiling.

The Brora campsite

The Brora site has direct access onto the Brora Golf Club links, and from there it is permitted to walk over the course, through the machair, and onto the beach. Be careful as you do so. Brora is one of the few golf courses in the world where sheep and cattle still roam free, which is part of its character. The greens are protected by low-voltage electric wires, so keep dogs on a lead and well clear; otherwise they are in for a nasty shock.

The wardens on site are extremely friendly and happy to chat about what to do around the area. They will keep you right if you need any assistance with the campervan, which is the kind of help that matters most on a first or second hire. Toilets and showers are plentiful, and the showers have a proper mixer tap, which sounds like a small thing until you have used a chain of campsites where they do not. Pitches are level, hook-ups work, and the site is quiet enough at night that you hear the sea rather than the road.

Atlas bundles Caravan and Motorhome Club membership free with every hire, so you pitch at the member rate here, which makes the Brora site one of the cheaper nights of an NC500 loop on top of being one of the more useful.

The golf and the beach

Brora is a James Braid links from 1923, and even non-golfers should walk a hole or two for the views back to the Sutherland hills. The course slopes gently toward the sea; the dunes give out onto a long, pale-sand beach that faces the Moray Firth. On a clear morning you can pick out the rigs at Nigg across the water, and dolphins are a regular sight in the bay. The beach itself is wide enough that the campsite never feels in your pocket, even in the school holidays.

The village, the distillery, and a cycle

From the campsite you can cycle up past the Clynelish Distillery toward Loch Brora and beyond, where the scenery opens out properly. It is a steady climb out of the village, then a quiet single-track road; the loch sits in a wide glen and is a good turnaround point for a half-day pedal. On the way back, drop into the village for lunch at Harry Gow’s bakery, which has a strong local following for its rowies and butteries, or for something cooked, pull up a chair at the Sutherland Inn.

Getting there from the depot

Brora is a long single day’s drive from the Atlas depot in Glasgow. The shortest route is north on the A9 through Perth, Inverness and the Cromarty crossing, then up the coast through Tain and Dornoch. It is around 220 miles and a steady five hours of driving in a four-berth motorhome before stops. Most customers following our ten-day NC500 itinerary break the run with a night either at Pitlochry or at one of the Inverness-area sites, then push on to Brora the following morning. Coming the other way round the loop, anti-clockwise from Inverness, Brora makes a natural last campsite before the run back south.

Practical notes for a motorhome

• Single-track manners. Most of the roads off the A9 in Sutherland are single-track with passing places. The convention is that whoever is closer to a passing place pulls in or reverses. Drivers in cars usually give way once they see a four-berth behind them.
• Watch for wildlife. Sheep on the verges and on the course itself; deer at dawn and dusk on the inland roads.
• Fuel up in Inverness or Tain. There is fuel in Brora and Golspie, but supply gets thinner the further north you go.
• Atlas is open mid-March to the first week of November. May, June and September are the kindest months on the east coast, with long evenings and fewer midges than the west. July and August are busier without ever feeling crowded.

Why it earns the stop

Brora is the campsite that fills a real gap on the NC500: a Caravan and Motorhome Club site with direct access to a beach and a golf course, friendly people on the gate, and a working village ten minutes’ walk away. It is not the loudest stop on the route. That is the point.