NC500 – Scotland’s Route 66!
In September we decided to take our beautiful camper Dylan on a trip to the NC500.
We had not spent much time in any of our campers and it was a chance to give it a proper ‘test run’.
Well, Dylan did not disappoint!
He was wonderful to drive, pretty good on fuel and easy to drive along, at times, very narrow and steep roads on the route. Dylan was warm and comfortable, the bed was amazing and we found ourselves sleeping eleven or twelve hours every night.
The generous kitchen space and storage worked very well, especially when the weather decided to ‘close in’. With our huge fridge and 7 bottle wine fridge, we were able to carry enough provisions for a week at a time.
We spent nearly three weeks on our trip, two of which were actually on the NC500. We felt like we could spend ‘forever’ in Dylan.
We decided to travel clockwise, I don’t know why! But I think we would travel the opposite way next time leaving the most dramatic scenery until near the end of the trip (saving best to last)
The places we stopped at were:
Isle of Skye
Applecross
Gairloch
Ullapool
Achmelvich
Scourie
Talmine
Melvich
Thurso
Scarfskerry
Brora
Loch Ness (just south of Inverness)
If pushed I’d say that our favourite place was Applecross and the Bealach na Ba Pass; the scenery was utterly breathtaking, I thought we could have been in the Alps! To cap it all, when we arrived at Applecross we had battered monkfish and chips, with Somerset cider….perfect
I would urge everyone to do the NC500 at least once, over 500 miles of the most amazing coastal scenery, with clear blue sea and empty beaches and dramatic mountainous areas and mile after mile of jaw dropping views.
But, beware the midges… they are bad! However I took an antihistamine every day for a week before we went and one every day we were travelling AND IT WORKED!!!
We loved the trip and loved our wonderful camper Dylan and will return.
Thank you Guy Tomlinson for giving us permission to share his wonderful photos of the NC500.
