God doesn't make road trips . . .
. . . but if she did - she'd make the NC500!
Most people do the NC500 to get to know Scotland, or at least to get a flavour of it. However, we chose to do it when we were already living there.
There are so many books, blogs and guides on the subject that we found it completely bewildering. We read a few articles and came to the conclusion that personal preferences aside, there needn't be too many decisions to make in advance. For us, it was as follows:-
1) What vehicle are you taking?
2) How long do you want to take?
3) Where will you sleep/eat/wash?
4) Do you go clockwise or anti clockwise?
We'd be taking our Land Rover Defender, affectionately named Isbjõrn (because she's a Polar Bear!). Isbjõrn is a micro camper, and being a 4wd we would have access to more camp spots than 'regular' camper vans.
On the subject of vehicles - you will see every size and shape on the NC500. However, on some roads caravans are forbidden. At some camping spots motorhomes are highly inappropriate. I think our choice was perfect but the majority of the vehicles we saw were about the size of a VW Camper.
Technically, you could do the route in a day or two. But you'd be mad! Others take a fortnight and only drive for 35 miles a day. That might be fine if you're cycling. We allowed ourselves 10 days and packed food, water and clothing appropriately. We knew from our limited research that the West Coast was likely to be our favourite area, as well as the slowest roads. We would spend 6 days on the Westerly quarter and only 1 day each on the other quarters.
A road trip in a camper van is fairly self explanatory in terms of accommodation. We ate, slept, washed and cooked in Isbjõrn. Most days we topped up with fuel and provisions. Every two or three days we would look for a campsite so that we could take a shower, empty the toilet and top up our water. We didn't pre-book, but given the explosion in staycations since 2020, I strongly recommend that you do!
Opinion is split on where to start and which rotation to follow. There seemed no right or wrong way, so we just started at Inverness and headed West - to get there as quickly as possible.
As it turns out, that was a smart move.
An optional part of the route is the Bealach na Bà pass. We'd seen pics, I'm sure you have too. We weren't going to miss out on that. The road in was amazingly steep and very very twisting. We are talking first gear hairpins looking down over a cliff into the sea. It was terrifying, but tremendous fun. However, we were pleased we chose this section for the climb. This section going the opposite way (on the descent) would have been much more difficult.
There is no wrong way to do this trip and it's just the right length to enable you to spend as long as you want on it. We never deviated much from the route - choosing to go back at a later date to fully explore our favourite parts (which we've now done several times).
As the route is laid out, it is a superb 'taster' for Northern Scotland.
We'll probably do it again this year.
Well ….. bits of it ;-)
