The form above signs you up for email newsletters and post notifications. Note that the default for post frequency is "Single Emails." We prefer that one as we can send you fulltext articles if it's a post type that supports it. If you sign up for multiple content areas and a "digest" frequency, you'll get a separate digest for every content area you check off, if we've published new content during that time period. Currently, "events" is only a monthly digest.
We send links to change your preferences or unsubscribe in every email we send.
One of the official stops on the North Coast 500, Smoo Cave in Durness Scotland, has an interesting history -- involving smuggling, of course!
One of the official stops on the North Coast 500, Smoo Cave in Durness Scotland, has an interesting history — involving smuggling, of course!
Smoo Cave
Worth Seeing
Overall
4
Summary
Smoo Cave is definitely worth a visit on your trip around the North Coast 500 route! It has an interesting history, but I’d definitely recommend doing the tour if you go to get the full experience.
Pros
Interesting history
It’s a cave with a waterfall!
If you just want to visit, it’s free (to my recollection)
Cons
If you just walk in, chances are you won’t get to fully explore. The tours take you on a boat into the cave, and I wish we’d done one.
There’s a long pathway down to the cave, which would be a limitation for some.
This post may contain affiliate links. This means that if you click a link that is an affiliate link and make a subsequent purchase, we may get a small commission that helps to run this website.
No Pets
££
Limited to None
No bikes
Highlights: A cave with a waterfall inside and a rich history that includes Viking, smuggling, and a highwayman.
Accessibility:From what I can recall, it was not accessbile due to the nature of the place. There was a long pathway to walk down to the cave entrance, a wood footbridge, uneven terrain/
Activities: Array
About Smoo Cave
Smoo Cave is a…cave (of course) in Durness, Scotland. It’s worth a stop on your trip around Scotland’s North Coast 500 and has an interesting history.
The Scotsman has an interesting article about the history of the place (and a better photo than I managed to get — mine are all close up to get a wide view of the cave entrance).
The article includes references to Viking finds on archeological digs, a history of smuggling (whisky, of course), and a kill site for a 16th-century highwayman.
You’ll pass over a covered footbridge going into the cave — surrounded by a bunch of stone stacks as people can’t seem to avoid stacking stones despite notes reminding people not to do this!
Inside the cave, you’ll find a waterfall — evidently, the cave goes back farther than we went. There’s even a company that does tours in the cave, which we didn’t have time for during our adventure there. I’d really recommend doing a tour here to really see the cave. For us, it was just a walk-in, look around, and leave.
I believe it was free to enter, but there was a charge for the tour.
Photos of Smoo Cave
Have you been to this location? Share an image by uploading it to the gallery. Visitor uploads are subject to terms and conditions for user uploads. If you want credit for your image, please be sure to add any attribution or link to the custom fields.
Smoo Cave Interior 2
The interior of Smoo Cave in Durness, Scotland.
It's said that smugglers used to use the cave, and I can definitely see it. There's more to the cave than just this area with the waterfall. Image size: Width: 5472 Height: 3648
Note at Smoo Cave
If you look at the other photos in this gallery, you can see that people made LOTS of stone stacks near the cave entrance. Apparently, to the detriment of the cave.
By Cheryl Dimof. Editoral Use Only. Taken at: Lairg, Scotland United Kingdom Event info (if any): , Image size: Width: 3029 Height: 4543
Smoo Cave Interior 2
The interior of Smoo Cave in Durness, Scotland.
By Cheryl Dimof. Royalty Free. Taken at: Durness, Scotland United Kingdom Event info (if any): , Image size: Width: 5472 Height: 3648
Smoo Cave
The inside of Smoo Cave in Durness, Scotland. I imagine this place was a perfect spot for smugglers.
By Cheryl Dimof. Royalty Free. Taken at: Durness, Scotland United Kingdom Event info (if any): , Image size: Width: 5472 Height: 3648
Stone Stacks at Smoo 2
People were apparently hard at work making stone stacks near the footbridge at Smoo Cave in Durness, Scotland.
By Cheryl Dimof. Royalty Free. Taken at: Durness, Scotland United Kingdom Event info (if any): , Image size: Width: 5472 Height: 3648
Rock wall at Smoo Cave
I just thought that the stone and green were interesting.
By Cheryl Dimof. Royalty Free. Taken at: Durness, Scotland United Kingdom Event info (if any): , Image size: Width: 5472 Height: 3648
Stone Stacks at Smoo
People were apparently hard at work making stone stacks near the footbridge at Smoo Cave in Durness, Scotland.
By Cheryl Dimof. Royalty Free. Taken at: Durness, Scotland United Kingdom Event info (if any): , Image size: Width: 5472 Height: 3648
Smoo Cave 2
A footbridge leads into Smoo Cave in Durness, Scotland.
By Cheryl Dimof. Royalty Free. Taken at: Durness, Scotland United Kingdom Event info (if any): , Image size: Width: 4949 Height: 2784
Smoo Cave 1
Smoo Cave in Durness, Scotland, has an interesting history.
By Cheryl Dimof. Royalty Free. Taken at: Durness, Scotland United Kingdom Event info (if any): , Image size: Width: 5472 Height: 3648
Smoo Cave Pathway
A winding path leads down to Smoo Cave in Durness, Scotland.
By Cheryl Dimof. Royalty Free. Taken at: Durness, Scotland United Kingdom Event info (if any): , Image size: Width: 5472 Height: 3648
Places Similar to Smoo Cave
Google Reviews of Smoo Cave
Below are some recent reviews from Google reviewers.
This is one of the incredibly beautiful places I have ever visited in my life. There is a waterfall inside the cave, which is beautiful and the force of the water was high.
It’s a scenic route to reach the caves and ten minutes walk to see the waterfall. Must visit❤️
Beautiful cave with a dramatic waterfall inside! Albeit it’s only for those who are happy to walk down a lot of steps and of course back up but it was well worth the views. (Check the video)
We went out of season so it was quiet and we just parked up in the small car park available which had loos too! Ideal! Nice little place to visit if you can on the NC500
There's a wee carpark, picnic area and public toilets. Was busy when I got there but it's right on the NC500 so that wasn't surprising. It's only a 5 minute walk down to the cave but the steps down are quite steep so maybe not for those with reduced mobility - especially on the way back up. Don't forget to check out the sink hole on the opposite side of the road before you come to the car park - coming from the east.
Scottish Piranha! Slightly tongue in cheek I think but a brilliant experience visiting this geological phenomena.
The tour is pretty interesting as you find out about how the cave was formed, the people that used to live there and how it forms part of a largely undiscovered huge network of underground caverns yet to be explored.
Bring appropriate footwear for a wet cave. You can take a little dinghy tour to explore further insight the caves .
Worth a stop and look. Toilets at the top in car park. Walk down some steps to cave. We didn’t do tour (cash only), but could see enough. Walk out to the viewpoint with it for dramatic scenery.
The rating tool below is for rating this location writeup, not for the location itself, and allows this location to be shown in "top-rated posts" lists. If you've visited this page and would like to rate it, visit the review box or leave a review.
Rate This
How many cups of hot coffee does this deserve?
This post got 0 mugs out of 0 votes.
No votes so far! Be the first to rate it.
We are so sorry that you found this post like a weak cup of swill!
Leave some feedback about why.
Let us know why you gave this post a low rating. We may or may not share your feedback with the post's author. If you want to leave public feedback, leave a comment.
The form above signs you up for email newsletters and post notifications. Note that the default for post frequency is "Single Emails." We prefer that one as we can send you fulltext articles if it's a post type that supports it. If you sign up for multiple content areas and a "digest" frequency, you'll get a separate digest for every content area you check off, if we've published new content during that time period. Currently, "events" is only a monthly digest.
We send links to change your preferences or unsubscribe in every email we send.
Manage browser notifications
Subscribe to browser notifications?
You are subscribed to notifications
Subscribe to browser notifications?
You are subscribed to notifications
wpDiscuz
Manage your privacy
To provide the best experiences, we and our partners use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us and our partners to process personal data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site and show (non-) personalized ads. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Click below to consent to the above or make granular choices. Your choices will be applied to this site only. You can change your settings at any time, including withdrawing your consent, by using the toggles on the Cookie Policy, or by clicking on the manage consent button at the bottom of the screen.
Necessary
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
We use cookies to optimize our website and our service.
Necessary
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
If you’re reading this, you may have noticed that we have several rating tools on “places” pages. This is why:
The coffee cup rating tool that’s just above the button you probably clicked to read this is to rate the location post. We keep it enabled on locations as it allows visitors to rate the post and, thus, for the post to appear in “top-rated” post lists.
The stars that you see in the page hero are connected with reviews. If we’ve started a review box for the location, you’ll find the ability to rate the place per feature or if it just has a general rating overall. The review stars in the header are also clickable. Visitor ratings, here, will show up in the schema for the place (that is, in search engines and such).
The little rating stars near the beginning of the post that also show in the list of locations are to help with sorting by rating. Sadly, we cannot get these to show in schema, but we like to be able to sort by rating, so we’ve left them enabled.
If you want to rate this place — either the place itself or the post, please consider also leaving a review (if you’ve actually visited it) by going to the comment section and leaving a comment.
Thanks for your interest in our photos!
If you’re downloading a photo just for personal use, that’s great! If you intend to use this photo on another website, please credit the URL here at which you found this image.
Note that we may also have this image in a larger size on our photo website PNWLens.com.
To complete your download, close this popup and hit the download button again. The popup won’t happen again and the image will download.
New Report
Close
Login
Thanks for sharing!
We're glad you found something of value or interest! Consider following us on social media or subscribing to email newsletters and notifications
The form above subscribes you to all new posts except for "asides" as well as website news and updates, but does NOT subscribe you to shop, asides, or events. If you want the subscribe form with all options click here.
Comment & Review