This is Camusdarach beach just south of the Morar River estuary in northwest Scotland   The film Local Hero was shot here and in Aberdeenshire; the beach scenes are at Camusdarach and the village scenes at Pennan in Aberdeenshire, 185 miles away.  Watching the film again, this disregard for geography falls into the realms of the ‘blindingly obvious’;  there are geological explanations why the landscapes don’t match but the real giveaway is the weather.  The Camusdarach beach scenes are filmed in perfect Highland and Island reflected light whilst the village scenes on the ‘same day’, are filmed in that drab granite light peculiar to the north east.  Why the film makers didn’t use Arisaig village a few miles south of Camusdarach is a mystery.

The photograph focuses on the marram grass in the foreground with the soft white sands of Camusdarach beyond and beyond that, the unmistakable outlines of Eigg & Rhum; if this photograph has any merit then it is owed entirely to the profile of these islands beyond. (I suggest clicking on the image to enlarge – compression does it no favours).

I include this picture to show the Mediterranean colours on the beach – at least when the sun is shining: