Local Information

  • Eating Out
  • Shopping
  • Fuel
  • Boat trips
  • Gift Shops
  • Museums
  • Swimming Pools
  • Fitness Centres
  • Gardens
  • Fishing Trips

For that special evening out, the Park is close to some excellent restaurants and renowned local hostelries.

Laide village store/post office (which also has a filling station) carries a wide range of provisions and hardware and is only 150 metres from the Park. Only slightly further afield, there is a small supermarket in Aultbea and on the way you will pass the Aultbea Butcher Company, famed not only for the quality of the meat but also for the early-morning baking.
Sea-life cruises are available departing from Gairloch harbour and these will give you an instructional day out watching seals, dolphins and, with luck, a whale or two. A variety of 2-hour and 4-hour cruises are also available from Ullapool pier, some of which allow you to spend a little time on one of the Summer Isles where you may visit the Post Office and purchase some of their very own postage stamps. Wherever you sail from, you are guaranteed an interesting day out.

For those special Highland gifts, excellent shopping can be found nearby in the towns of Gairloch and Ullapool. Here there are museums to visit and boat trips to be enjoyed amidst the mountainous scenery. The Gairloch Centre has a fitness room and there are swimming pools in Poolewe (8 miles), Ullapool (42 miles) and Inverness (73 miles).

The world famous sub-tropical Inverewe Gardens at Poolewe are always worth a visit no matter what the time of year. These gardens, which were created by Sir Osgood Mackenzie over 100 years ago and are now owned by the National Trust for Scotland, occupy a large promontory jutting out into Loch Ewe and have been carefully laid out with hundreds of species of plants, shrubs and trees.

Sea angling trips are available daily and may be booked from the pier at Gairloch harbour. You won't even need your own rod as all equipment is supplied for you. You're guaranteed to catch something!