The Assynt Visitor Centre, Lochinver

The Centre is home to the Tourist Information Centre. For more information contact info@visitscotland.com. This is your first port of call for all kinds of tourist information. The Visitor Centre can provide advice, and provides many informative leaflets about the area, places to stay and places to visit. There are also toilets in the Centre.

There are displays and information on the Assynt area created by Assynt Tourism Group, with games and things for children to do, paper and colouring pencils, CD Rom of Assynt, reference section on geology, history, wildlife, walking etc, what to see in Assynt and recent wildlife sightings, videos and a telescope overlooking busy Lochinver harbour with views of seals, a touch table and fish tank with animals you come across in rock pools, geology specimens etc.

Highland Council Rangers

The upper floor of the Centre also houses the Highland Council Rangers.

Come upstairs and meet the Rangers - Andy, Tina, Roz and Julie-Ann - see the displays and find things for the children to do! Get advice or information on walks or wildlife in Assynt.

Tel: 01571 844654 (leave a message if we’re not there!)

Email: andy.summers@highland.gov.uk

There are also Ranger Huts at Achmelvich and Clachtoll with wildlife information and displays. The Rangers organise an annual Sand Sculpture competition at Clachtoll.

For details of such events and a list of the Guided Walks arranged and led by the Rangers, go to the EVENTS page.

One of the main projects on display in the centre was created by the Lochinver Heronry Project.

(Partners in this Project are: Assynt Tourism Group, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Highland Council Ranger Service, Culag Community Woodland Trust, Assynt Community Council, Assynt Field Club, Scottish Natural Heritage.)

In 2003 a CCTV camera was installed at a Grey Heron nest in Culag Woods. Live video pictures are transmitted to the Assynt Visitor Centre where the public can view the nest on a large 28 inch monitor. A VCR records the activity in the nest for playback during times of inactivity. The screens are backed up with exciting interpretative displays on all aspects of Grey Heron ecology.

The 2003 images of adult herons bringing in fish and eels to hungry chicks on a nest of sticks over 80 feet up in a spruce tree were stunning. We look forward to a successful season this year.