Our Travel Blog

Our last day of the NC500! Last night was another “Spar” night, i.e. grab some snacks from the local supermarket. It seems the towns and villages on the NC500 are suffering a massive staffing shortage on the catering front. Despite that, the hotel deserves a picture.

Today was a bit odd insomuch as we had little left to do, but there was too much to do to finish the trip yesterday. Given that hindsight is 20/20 we may have done better by stopping earlier yesterday, and starting off today with the Applecross loop. Today’s one and only planned stop was a walk to the Rogie waterfalls.

The scenery changed from barren rocks to grass and green trees. I hadn’t mentioned earlier, but in a lot of the places we travelled through, there were no trees.

We stopped for coffee, and for some reason there was a wall of tea pots!

We arrived at the hotel a couple of hours early, and we couldn’t check in so we just ambled around the countryside (for a change) and went into the local town of Dingwall.

Again, the hotel has staffing problems and their restaurant is only open 3 days a week, today isn’t one of them so we will go out and treat ourselves to some typical Highland food—–an Indian Curry!

Well, the meal was excellent!

Looking back over the last week, it was well worth doing! Lyn had planned out an excellent itinerary which managed to give us enough to do, but didn’t wear us out. The scenery was excellent and the weather cooperated most days. I found I was a little out of practice for driving on narrow roads while sitting on the other side of the car. After a couple of days I sort got used to it, but the single track roads were a little taxing. I guess old age is setting in!

I suspect this will be the last entry for this trip as the next couple of weeks will be spent with friends and family, so not too much travel. If anything interesting comes up, I’ll make an entry.

The next trip is a cruise on the Danube from Budapest, Hungary to Amsterdam, Holland at the beginning of October. In the mean time I will try to find a better way to post the pictures, it was a PITA this time!!

Ok, we’ll break from the traditional picture of the place we stayed last night, for two reasons. I forgot to take a photo, and I wasn’t impressed with it. We’ve had better rooms with breakfast and dinner included for less than half the price of that place, also it’s location, Ullapool professes to be a tourist town. I think all that means is that they can increase the prices and decrease the services. Trying to find any form of eating establishment that didn’t have a 2 hour wait was not possible, we finished up at the local chippy.

This morning we headed out after tracking down a mediocre breakfast. OK soap box mode off.

Our first stop today was Corrieshaloch, the site of a large gorge. Pictures below

Next are some general views as we drove to the next stop

Below are a couple of shots of Loch Ewe. This loch was used during WWII as a staging area for convoys to the Russian Arctic regions.

The loch is still used by the military today, below is a NATO refueling station.

We finally came to the highlight of todays trip, the Applecross Loop. This is a smaller than usual single track road which climbs to 2053ft ASL and is one of the highest roads in the UK. As you can see the views are spectacular.

Well, I am sure they would have been if the clouds weren’t so low!

Now to the title, we have constantly been warned about the the driving habits of mobile homes on this route. They have been fine, the real idiots on the road are cyclists. They apparently have no situational awareness. They insist on riding two abreast and taking up the whole lane of the road even if there is a queue of cars behind and the cyclists are traveling at magnificent 3 MPH. Also it appears passing places only exist for motor vehicles to allow bikes through in the opposite direction, the cyclists have no concept of using these passing places to allow cars to pass them! Second rant over.

We checked into our guest house and were pleased to find good accommodation.

Todays blog is a little haphazard with little writing other than rants! It’s just one of those days.

I believe I have solved the image size problem. The last entry “WHY” has been modified to show the images correctly…. I think. I’m not sure whether this was a WordPress issue, or an issue caused by my using a tablet rather than a laptop. Maybe someone using a PC or Laptop could let me know if they had problems with the picture sizing?

We’ll get to the title later, but as Lyn will confirm it is a word I have said many times in the last few days!

Below is last nights accomodation, which yet again featured a massive breakfast. Thankfully none of these places have scales, but I am sure some serious weight loss will be required when we get home.

Despite me saying yesterday that I thought the bed and breakfast was beyond the back of beyond, that was not the case. There were a couple of eating places close by, but we decided that the pies that we had bought earlier would do!

We took a tour around when we left and found a large harbour and warehouse facilities that could house about 10 lorries (18 wheelers), so I am guessing there is a major fishing industry there.

Again, the day was more about scenery than destinations. Were were given some advice on the scenic route to take from the B&B owner (it was the same as we had planned), together with some warnings about mobile homes. Back home it is believed that on BMW cars turn signals are an optional extra and that a special course is required to learn how to use them. We were told a similar saying applies to mobile homes up here, but instead of turn signals, the optional extra was reverse gear. I gather a large percentage of mobile homes are first time rentals and the drivers can not or will not reverse back to a passing place. I wonder how that works if two mobile homes meet in a single track road.

As it turns out the scenic route we took was about 25 miles of single track road. However there were plenty of passing places, an the majority of times we met on coming traffic it was at a passing place.

In reality we had no issues with motor homes. However there other concerns.

Probably the biggest issue though were pot holes, it must have been their breeding season, they were all over the place!

Ok, we come to the title “Why?” Well in my mind the picture below sums up my question.

Being a city guy, with limited country living, I just can’t fathom why anyone would live there. It must be 35 miles to the nearest village which might have a small convenience store. Any major stores are probably 85 miles away, schools could be anywhere etc. etc. On the other hand, I am sure that the generations that have lived here would be absolutely hate town or city life, chaque un a son gout (Google it).

As I said earlier today was mostly about the scenery, so here come the pictures.

Despite the GPS saying there was less than a mile to our destination, there were no signs of civilization! Then as we came over a hill and round a corner we saw a cruise ship in a harbour with the town of Ullapool of to the side. We were so shocked we forgot to take a picture!

The scenery is better (it was pretty good before) on the west coast, unfortunately a lot of what we see with the eye can’t be caught on the camera. It seems we have to pay for the better scenery though, the west coast is far more expensive than either the east or the north.

Sorry kids, but we’re spending your inheritance

Tomorrow we continue south down south along the west coast, destination unknown as the map got left in the car.

Last nights hotel was one of a chain across the country, and had only been recently built. We had dinner an breakfast there and, as checkout was not until noon, we decided to watch some of the pomp and ceremony of the Coronation (sorry Claire!)

Yesterdays mist and rain had cleared out and it was blue skies and sunshine when we left. The temperature climbed to 22C(72F) as the day progressed. We had little planned for today, and a couple of those that we did have planned couldn’t be found!

For a lot of the time the road followed the north coast of Scotland with views alternating between stark cliffs and sandy beaches. Again, being the lazy person I am, I’ll just dump a load of pictures below.

We passed by Dounreay, which was the site of Scotland’s first nuclear reactor. It is no longer in use and is slowly being decommissioned.

On one particular beach we decided to go for a walk, but after a few hundred yards we were sinking about six inches into the sand. We turned around!!

As luck would have it we “discovered” a craft village along the route (well sort of along the route!). It appears that it was once a busy place, but I suspect COVID closed a number of the stores down. They now seem to be slowly getting back normal. One store in particular caught our attention and we bought some glass work.

Having been used to fields of brown heather and rocks we were surprised to see some vivid green field very occaisionally.

Our guest house for tonight seemed to be beyond the back of beyond when we found it on the map. When I was scouting out accomodation, it was very difficult to find anything in this area. In preparation for an isolated night and no food, we dropped into a store for a couple of pies, crisps (chips), and a desert.

As we got closer to our destination the clouds got lower, and the temperature got rapidly lower, dropping from 22C (72F) to 13C (56F) in about an hour. As we pulled up at the guest house a couple of things happened, it started to pour with rain, and a small stone wall jumped out behind me stopping the car rapidly! Luckily the 5MPH bumpers worked and there is no sign of damage!

Talking of cars, many of you know we own a 1977 MGB. When my son drove up in his hire car I was somewhat dismayed to find it was an MG, albeit an SUV. Since then we have passed dozens of these cars. Today we discovered an electric MG. What is the world coming to??

Getting back on track, we checked into the guest house. As we expected this was the most spartan one to date. It was clean, the room was small and horror of horrors there was no en-suite bathroom. We did have our own private bathroom but it was across the corridor. First world problems I guess. At least there were some white whine glasses for the Gin & Tonic!!

And the view isn’t bad

Tomorrow we start heading south towards Ullapool.

Well maybe the title is a little dramatic, but we’ll get to that later.

Last nights hotel was an old country house that was a little on the cold side, at least in the corridors and public rooms, there was an open fire in the bar which helped, and the heater in our room made it toasty warm. The food and drinks were good!!

After breakfast we continued north on the NC500. Our first stop was at Ousdale Broch, where there were meant to be signs of 3rd century circular dwellings. Our eye-sight must be worse than we thought as we couldn’t see any!

Having missed out on the old houses we took an unscheduled turn to a harbour at Lathertown Wheel. This appeared to be an old and little used place, and although the water in the harbour was calm, the entrance to it was very narrow with fast running water.

A few miles up the road at Lybster we found a more modern harbour. Again the harbour was calm but the entrance to it looked pretty frightening. I have to say though that the weather today was cold and VERY windy, so the sea was getting whipped up quite a bit.

Up on dry land we saw what appeared to be a new boat. My first thought was that it was a life size model from Thomas the Tank or Captain Pugwash!!

From here we went on to Duncansby Head, the furthest Nort East point of the British Mainland.

Everywhere we have traveled there have been sheep and lambs by the thousands. I finally managed to get some pictures.

Another thing that there has been plenty of are stone walls. There are miles upon miles of them. These walls are constructed of stone only, no mortar.

The daily view from the front, we spotted this lonely wind mill!

Heading even further north we reached Dunnet Head, the furthest north point on the mainland.

Of course being this far north we had to go to John O’Groats which is the furthest north mainland village, and more famous than Dunnet Head.

Further on we came across one of many “Castles” that exist up here. I think in many cases the use of the word Castle is a little ostentatious, large mansion may have been better. Anyway the one below is the Castle of Mey, bought and restored by the late Queen Mother.

From there we headed off to our stop for the night, Thurso. Again this is a hotel rather than a B&B so no driving needed to hunt down food and drink.

A couple of things I like about this trip for the North American readers, the price of an article that you see for sale is the price you pay. All the sales taxes are built into the displayed price. For the UK readers that don’t know, in N. America the displayed prices are before tax. When you get to the checkout a further 0-15% is added to the bill, depending where you are. The other big difference, certainly up here in Northern Scotland, there is no tipping, nor any expectation of tips. Gone, for a couple of weeks at least, are the credit card machines asking whether you want to add 15, 18, 20 or 25% tip. BLISS!

We had a good meal at the local Hotel last night followed by a good, country air induced, sleep.

After a good breakfast, which included haggis we headed back into the village for our boat trip. We were a little disappointed when we were told that there were problems with the boat. However the owner found anther boat at the last moment.

Although the day was sunny and dry, it was a little windy, with the wind forecast to rise throughout the morning. It was suggested we visited the toilets (washrooms) before we left for the trip. This was the first time I had seen pictorial instructions on how to use a toilet!!!

The operator provided us with wet weather gear, which turned out to be a blessing as it was both warm and waterproof. They even gave us a waterproof bag for the phones and camera.

Once we were all kitted out we had a quick safety briefing and headed down to the boat. This beast had twin 200HP outboards and seated 12.

The trip was primarily to see dolphins, but they didn’t want to come out and play. We took a trip inland along Cromatry Firth first. Back in the oil boom days of the last century this area was a centre for oil rig construction. Now days they carry out repairs to the rigs. They also fabricate wind turbine blades and towers and ship them to the wind farms.

The rig above floats in the sea while in use, the one beneath has 3 legs which are lowered to the sea floor to support the rig.

Althogh there were no dolphins we did manage a quick glimpse of a couple of seals, unfortunately the boat was bouncing around too much to get any pictures.

Closer into the cliffs we could see hundreds of birds that make the cliffs their home during breeding season. The birds below reminded us of penguins at first glance, but they are in fact guillemots. They are not related to the penguin, but to the puffin.

There were also a number of shags and cormorants on the cliff, the shags being a smaller version of the cormorant.

We were very thankful for the wet weather gear! The seas were moderately rough and we were in the front seats. The boat was well designed and if it were not for the wind we would have stayed dry, however the wind managed to blow a few liters of water over us!

Once back on dry land we headed off to our next destination, Helmsdale. One thing I didn’t mention yesterday was the change in land. Around Spean to Inverness the land was very rocky and barren and only able to support sheep and occasionally cattle. Once past Inverness it changed to become more arable with crops jus being planted and many bright yellow fields of mustard.

Todays view from the front seat. As you can see, the road has improved and there is now room for cars to safely pass each other!

Our next stop was the village of Dornoch, which had a 12th century Cathederal. If that not old enough for you, it was built on the site of a 6th century church!

When we entered the Cathedral there was organ music playing, I thought at first it ws recorded music, but later discovered the organist practicing. You can just see him in the bottom right of the picture below.

The whole village was full of interesting old buildings.

Next on the list was Dunrobin Castle built in 1835. The main attraction here for Lyn was the gardens, unfortunately the entrance fee for the whole tour would probably have paid for the castle (slight exaggeration!), and given the time of year the gardens would probably not have been worth touring.

We now headed to our destination in Helmsdale. We are staying at a “real” hotel, it has a bar and restaurant, so no traveling to find somewhere to eat (and drink). Below is the view from our room.

Tomorrow our destination is Thurso.

We left Spean Bridge this morning after a final farewell to family. Below is the guest house that has been our home for the last week. It was originally built as a family home for Lyn’s Aunt, Uncle and 5 children about 60 years ago. It has since been expanded a couple of times.

One thing I haven’t mentioned about Spean, and probably the thing it is most famous for is the Caommando Memorial (Commando Memorial – Wikipedia). It was unveiled in 1952 and overlooks the training areas used by the commandos.

Today’s drive is to Cromarty, although the scenery was great as usual, it was a bit misty so the photos wouldn’t have done it justice.

We made a brief stop at Chanonry Point Lighthouse in the hope of seeing dolphins, but they didn’t want to come out and play.

We reached Cromarty, which is a small village on the coast with even smaller streets. It seems that the roads are just wide enough for 1.95 cars and they happily park on the street leaving very little room to get by. I realize this is probably quite normal for the Brits, but us Colonials are not used to this!!

Cromarty has a harbour and even a couple of oil rigs. There also seems to be an area where they load windmills onto ships to take out and “plant” in the sea for off-shore electricity generation.

We had some time to kill so we took a walk around the village. Below is an old and odd shaped tree that caught our attention. Unfortunately it doesn’t come out too clearly in the photo because the house in the background.

Tomorrow we head out to sea in the hope of seeing some dolphins (I think I said whales earlier, I may have been wrong). After that we join the NC500 proper (North Coast 500 – The ultimate road trip around the North of Scotland) with a destination of Helmsdale. Now it’s off to the pub for dinner!