North Coast 500

The NC 500 is a mix of roads comprising of a few runs of dual carriageway but mainly single carriageways together with many coastal single track roads with passing places and of course the Bealach na Ba pass. It takes you through some breathtaking scenery of lochs, mountains, rolling hills and rugged coastline. The route, now known as the NC500, is strongly promoted by the Scottish tourist board and attracts a wide bunch of travellers driving all sorts of vehicles from high end exotic sports cars through to camper vans. The route can get busy and don’t forget that these are still very much working roads for some very isolated communities and while I’m sure most locals appreciate the revenue from the tourist trade others can get frustrated at the volume of traffic especially when drivers are not courteous. The route starts and finishes at Inverness and generally most travel in a clockwise direction, for no particular reason I planned an anticlockwise route. Its fair to say that the East coast scenery is less dramatic than the North/North West and of course it’s good to finish with the Bealach na Ba pass. I also chose not to complete the final leg back to Inverness as I had travelled up to Inverness via Aviemore and wanted to travel down South through Glencoe and taking in Loch Lomond. Just tailor the route to achieve what you want to get out of it. There are plenty of guides and maps of the NC500, my personal choice would be The North Coast 500 Guide Book by Charles Tait, together with North Coast 500 map from UK map centre, scale 1:240000.

16 Sep Home to Gretna

It’s a long haul driving up M5/M6 from just outside Cirencester arriving at Gretna for an overnight stay. The route always appears to have major roadworks and speed restrictions down to 30 mph along some stretches. The stop over provides a good springboard to reach Inverness for the start of the NC500 in good time and then onwards to Tain for the next over nighter. Our hotel, the Gables, was found easily coming off junction 22 from the M6, with plenty of parking and a smooth check in. We took an evening meal there as part of a bed, breakfast and dinner deal, all good hearty food.

17 Sep Gretna to Tain

Left Gretna and was going to fill up at local station but eventually filled up on motorway services – expensive mistake, ridiculous prices for fuel especially if you want higher octane. Average speed cameras were in force along the A9 with no indication of the speed limit but on single lane elements this, I assume, is 60 and for the few dual carriageways this goes up to 70. The speed cameras keep speeds down and has the benefit of giving some remarkable mpg for a Cayman of around 29. However, it can be frustrating if you get behind a dawdler or HGV’s as there are limited opportunities to overtake; sit back and enjoy the scenery. Parked up and checked in at our Airbnb room in Tain and headed off on a short walk into town for a meal. We dined at 1864 Platform; good beer and food and would recommend.

18 Sep Tain to Dunnet Head

Breakfast at Bill’s place the “Golf View” was excellent and set us up well for the day ahead. We could appreciate the view of the Dornoch Firth from the house much better in the morning as we took breakfast. Tain has the advantage of being within striking distance of two whisky distilleries, the Glenmorangie and Balblair, we chose to have a tour at Balblair as it was the least well known of the two and less commercialised, it also had a tour available for 11:00 which was ideal. Check out from Bill’s was 10:00 so it gave us time to explore the Bonar bridge before we arrived at the distillery.

The distillery tour was £10 per person, it included a tour of the facilities and a tasting of the whiskies at the end. For those driving they provided tasting sample bottles to take away, all in all a good tour.

Next stop, as we headed towards John O’ Groats, was Donrobin Castle at Golspie. This was a quick stop over for us but there are guided tours and falconry displays throughout the high season.

We then went on to John O’ Groats, while this location is well known the reality is quite uninspiring, a sign post tops the bill. However, if you look beyond the facade you will find some dramatic scenery in the Duncansby stacks, well worth a short walk from JOG or a short drive and walk, but don’t just look at the sign post!

We carried on around to Dunnett’s head for our overnight stop at the New Sands hotel. The appearance from the outside is not appealing but inside the colours are more subtle, the staff welcoming and the food very good. It’s not the cheapest in the area but to be fair there is not a great deal of choice, our evening meal there was one of the best of our tour.

19 Sep Dunnet head to Glencanisp

This was a long stage of the tour with around 250 miles covered and taking in some challenging single track coastal roads. The driveway to the hunting lodge in Assynt was long and potholed which grounded the car on one occasion. The view from our room at the lodge was stunning overlooking mount Suilven, the room was spacious but chilly. We took the evening meal at the lodge at a fixed price and the food was good but portions were not generous and I could not consider it value for money. The lodge is in a state of transition as it is being developed as a going concern; it’s a unique and quirky experience.

20^th Sep Glencanisp to Loch Carron

The morning view of Suilven was just as dramatic and we set off from the lodge after a sound breakfast which could be described as minimalistic but never the less was well cooked and presented. Storms that had travelled from America were blowing through the area but were not too severe, we made our way out of the drive and on to our next stop at Loch Carron.

The winds provided some rugged coastal scenes and combined with outbursts of strong sunshine produced some unusual rainbows. This stage of the tour was set to provide the most dramatic scenery and the most challenging roads as it would include a final stretch taking the Bealach na Ba pass from Applecross to Loch Carron as well as single track coastal roads with limited passing places.

21 Sep Loch Carron to Carlisle

Loch Lomond

22 Sep Carlisle to home

We took the opportunity to break our journey home with a stop off in Manchester to visit family. Manchester is such a vibrant city, particularly in areas such as Ancoats and New Islington, where new businesses including bars and eateries are popping up and transforming the area. Battling the motorway speed restrictions we made our way home to start planning our next tour. We had clocked over 1600 miles in the Cayman and it never missed a beat taking in some really challenging roads and weather.