The A838 is a

major road A highway is any public or private road or other public way on land. It is used for major roads, but also includes other public roads and public tracks. In some areas of the United States, it is used as an equivalent term to controlled-access ...

Sutherland Sutherland ( gd, Cataibh) is a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area in the Highlands of Scotland. Its county town is Dornoch. Sutherland borders Caithness and Moray Firth to the east, Ross-shire and Cromartyshire (later ...

, in the Highland area of Scotland. It runs generally northwest from the A836 in the Lairg area to

Laxford Bridge The Laxford Bridge is a stone arch bridge in Sutherland, Scotland which carries the A838 across the River Laxford north to Rhiconich and Durness. The bridge was built about 1834 by the Dukes of Sutherland – the road from Lairg, one of th ...

on the west coast of Scotland, then generally northeast to Durness on the north coast, and then generally east/southeast to Tongue, where it rejoins the A836. The A836 takes a more direct route from Lairg to Tongue. The A838 has a junction with two other classified roads, the A894 at

, and the B801 at Rhiconich. Between Lairg and Laxford Bridge the road runs close to five

loch ''Loch'' () is the Scottish Gaelic, Scots language, Scots and Irish language, Irish word for a lake or sea inlet. It is Cognate, cognate with the Manx language, Manx lough, Cornish language, Cornish logh, and one of the Welsh language, Welsh w ...

s: Loch Shin,

Loch a' Ghriama ''Loch'' () is the Scottish Gaelic, Scots and Irish word for a lake or sea inlet. It is cognate with the Manx lough, Cornish logh, and one of the Welsh words for lake, llwch. In English English and Hiberno-English, the anglicised spelling ...

Loch Merkland Loch Merkland is a large long inland loch in Sutherland, Northern Scotland. It is located adjacent to the A838 main road which provides almost all access to the Loch and the Merkland Lodge to the south of it. There are many trails and hiking pa ...

, Loch More and

Loch Stack Loch Stack is a large, irregularly shaped freshwater loch in the Northwest of Scotland. It lies approximately southeast of Laxford Bridge and is surrounded by mountains. Ben Stack rises steeply from the loch's southwestern shore and Arkle (Suthe ...

as well as the coastal inlet of the Kyle of Durness. Between Durness and Tongue the road loops south to skirt Loch Eriboll, and the

Kyle of Tongue Bridge The Kyle of Tongue Bridge is part of the Kyle of Tongue Causeway, which crosses Kyle of Tongue sea loch on the north coast of Scotland. The bridge and causeway were built by Sir Alexander Gibb & Partners in 1971 to carry the A838, the road fr ...

and causeway cross the Kyle of Tongue.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:8-0838 Roads in Scotland Transport in Highland (council area)