For many visitors to Scotland, the north-west coast is quite simply a little slice of heaven and one of the jewels of this altogether glorious region is the picturesque anchorage round Badachro Bay, on the south side of Loch Gairloch. 

Badachro, some 6 miles south of Gairloch (with shops and hotel), is a small village which straggles round the bay, with a famous inn on the lochside serving excellent meals. In a spectacular location overlooking the bay and within a short walk of the inn is Hillcrest, a traditional, stone-built cottage that sits in its own enclosed garden.

From this vantage point you can spend lazy afternoons watching the yachts enter and leave the harbour or the changing light on the distant mountains across the bay.

Inside the house has been attractively and comfortably furnished. The sitting room, with its cheerful wood-burning stove, has a large bay window which affords excellent views over the front garden, village and bay. Chances are guests will want to turn the chairs around in daylight hours and drink in the vista before them. The furnishings are a pleasant mixture of traditional and modern, while the two ‘Monarch of the Glen’ pictures make it impossible to forget that you are in the western Highlands.

The modern kitchen has a separate dining area, which is probably where most meals will be taken for reasons of sheer convenience. For special meals the separate dining room, with a wood-burning stove, also gives the opportunity for the party to spread out for different activities. Also on this level are a pretty double bedroom and a wet room with a bath and shower.

Upstairs there are two further bedrooms, a double and a twin (with beds that can be pushed together to make a double), with a wash basin and a shower room and WC. The bedrooms are all simply but pleasantly furnished and having bathroom facilities upstairs and down makes for maximum practicality. There is also an additional Z-bed that can be added to the twin room, available by prior arrangement.

Outside there is parking right at the door and an extensive enclosed grassed garden (with furniture and BBQ) with stunning loch views beyond it.

With the wonderful sandy beach at Redpoint only 15 minutes' drive away and the magnificent Big Sands under half an hour's drive away, one of the first things on the agenda is surely to be a beach day.