Highlands

[pb450]

HKGriff said:

Just did the NC500. What an amazing experience. Inverness - Wick - JoG - Dunnett Head - Thurso - Durness - Gairloch - Loch Lomond.

Glad you enjoyed it Terry. Looking forward to the write-up!
Peter

[HKGriff]

Chris77 said:

Had a week in Badachro last week, my kids, 1 and 2 and a half with our Westie in the back and my wife who suffers motion sickness, so as you can imagine I didn't get to enjoy any spirited driving unfortunately, Still the weather was fantastic and I did see a few nice cars might be some guys on here?

... and a group of older stuff same day (Morgan Jag XK120? Austin Healy)

I bumped into that group of Dutchmen at Scourie!

[Chris77]

HKGriff said:

I bumped into that group of Dutchmen at Scourie!

Yea that's them I have a feeling I saw your Griff at some point but cant recall where. I was in the wife's focus TDi

[leggly]

Chris77 said:

HKGriff said:

I bumped into that group of Dutchmen at Scourie!

Yea that's them I have a feeling I saw your Griff at some point but cant recall where. I was in the wife's focus TDi

There was a group of Dutchmen in Caithness a couple of years ago in similar vehicles along with a Cobra and a couple of Donkervoorts. Very impresive to see them all on the road.

[SimboRS]

Haven't had time to read the whole thread but will do soon. Quick question. What's the condition of the roads line up north particularly the NC500 route??
My car is very low, big wheels, tyres like elastic bands and admittedly a bit of a garage queen that's been built to sit and look nice rather than thrash the pants of. I would like to take it round the highlands though. Having to pull of roads to allow people to pass would probably be quite difficult.
Is it a good idea to take this car up there on such a trip or not??

[GetCarter]

Depends on how low you go. 12 Lambos did it last week. I've done it in and Aston and R500 with no issues. You need to be good at reversing!

[SimboRS]

Haven't had time to read the whole thread but will do soon. Quick question. What's the condition of the roads line up north particularly the NC500 route??
My car is very low, big wheels, tyres like elastic bands and admittedly a bit of a garage queen that's been built to sit and look nice rather than thrash the pants of. I would like to take it round the highlands though. Having to pull of roads to allow people to pass would probably be quite difficult.
Is it a good idea to take this car up there on such a trip or not??

[cat220]

SimboRS said:

Haven't had time to read the whole thread but will do soon. Quick question. What's the condition of the roads line up north particularly the NC500 route??
My car is very low, big wheels, tyres like elastic bands and admittedly a bit of a garage queen that's been built to sit and look nice rather than thrash the pants of. I would like to take it round the highlands though. Having to pull of roads to allow people to pass would probably be quite difficult.
Is it a good idea to take this car up there on such a trip or not??

The roads are generally very good, certainly in comparison with the surfaces in towns. What make of car are we talking? The single track roads are pretty well surfaced too however you need to watch grounding, again don't hammer it and I reckon you'd be fine.

[SimboRS]

It's an escort cosworth, the front splitter only sits about 3" from the Tarmac

[Ennoch]

SimboRS said:

It's an escort cosworth, the front splitter only sits about 3" from the Tarmac

On the NC500 roads I don't think you'd have any bother. On some of the more obscure singletrack lanes you'll definitely be picking that splitter up from back up the road if you've been really hammering it and hit some compressions. I've grounded out the Impreza a few times when really pressing on and it's not *that* low, but then that's on some of the really humped single track roads that are a bit more obscure.

[leginigel]

Just booked a number of places to stay on the NC500 route for the week starting 11th of September before reading this thread,looks like I made a good choice,can't wait.I have seen a few people say don't go to Skye is this true ? We are driving up from Essex to our first stop a nice hotel in Berwick upon Tweed for two nights then on to a B&B just outside Dundee on the A930/A92 which we will then follow right though to Stonehaven and Aberdeen,A90/A98 is this better than the cuting across using the A96 to Elgin?

[mon the fish]

leginigel said:

Just booked a number of places to stay on the NC500 route for the week starting 11th of September before reading this thread,looks like I made a good choice,can't wait.I have seen a few people say don't go to Skye is this true ? We are driving up from Essex to our first stop a nice hotel in Berwick upon Tweed for two nights then on to a B&B just outside Dundee on the A930/A92 which we will then follow right though to Stonehaven and Aberdeen,A90/A98 is this better than the cuting across using the A96 to Elgin?

I would personally go via Coupar Angus to get on the A93 to Braemar, then A939 over the Lecht and up through Grantown, then the A940 across Dava moor to Forres, then to Elgin.

A90 is a boring dual carriageway with speed cameras and speed traps. A96 has no fixed cameras beyond Aberdeen airport from memory, however is busy, boring, likely to get stuck behind lorries on the single carriageway and has speed traps. A93 is a rollercoaster of a road

[Ennoch]

leginigel said:

I have seen a few people say don't go to Skye is this true?

Not sure why anyone would say that, Skye is a stunning place and if you're driving up, well worth the visit. You can go up through Glencoe, to Fort William , Invergarry and over to the boat at Glenelg. Drive around and then end up at Kyle of Lochalsh for the bridge back to the mainland. Well worth it IMO. You don't necessarily need to spend a huge amount of time there, especially if you've not got that much time, but doing a bit of a drive around on the way further north really should be on your list. It's one of the most amazing places in Scotland.

[johnwilliams77]

mon the fish said:

I would personally go via Coupar Angus to get on the A93 to Braemar, then A939 over the Lecht and up through Grantown, then the A940 across Dava moor to Forres, then to Elgin.

A90 is a boring dual carriageway with speed cameras and speed traps. A96 has no fixed cameras beyond Aberdeen airport from memory, however is busy, boring, likely to get stuck behind lorries on the single carriageway and has speed traps. A93 is a rollercoaster of a road

This is an absolute must. This may help with the decision: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkAT82-R0S8

I love that video.

[bgh_187]

Hi All
Thought I'd share some pics from our 4 day driving holiday from early May
The plan was to go from Edinburgh, up through the cairngorms to inverness. and stay there on night 1.


Our Vehicles for the trip

day 2 we were setting off from Inverness and heading up do as many of the suggested driving roads around north highlands.
So we headed A9>B9176>A836 to Tongue











Then on to Durness for a pitstop.


Smoo cave.

Had to give right of way to these guys, just so we could get a good look at their machinery of choice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9WyvaUhtMs

After Durness we headed to Balnakeil beach and the on to our overnight stop at Lochinver via the B869, which I quite an amazing road to drive! with some really scary crests and drops like a rollercoaster.


Everyone takes a photo of this bridge

Day 3 we headed out from Lochinver in the rain and drove for Ullapool for a fuel stop. By the time we reached Ullapool the weather had broken and the sun was out





We then headed for the Bealach Na Ba, doing the coastal road first and then heading over from the Applecross side.














After that we headed back to Inverness for our last night.




Day 4 we set out to head to Skye. The weather was really misty in Inverness, but as we drove south down by Loch Ness the weather broke again and the temperature doubled to 26c!

We drove along the A87 and stopped on at Eilean Donan castle for luch and some sight seeing.




We then headed over to Skye and turned down towards Armadale for the ferry to Malaig.






Once off the ferry we had a good blast along the A830 to Fort William where we stopped for dinner.

After we had been fed we put the foot down and headed for home back in Edinburgh.





All in all it was a brilliant trip and very easy to do! We covered 926 miles in the 4 days and I still managed to do nearly 30mpg in the S2000! lol
The only minor casualties of the trip were my exhaust taking a bit of scraping, my windscreen getting chipped and the type R had a bit of a fight with a boulder and came out second best with a slightly broken splitter.

We will definitely be doing this trip again next year and hopefully getting to do more of the suggested roads.

Cheers
Blair.

[Chris77]

That S2000 is just perfect!

[Red Devil]

Photo locations (I've left out the ones which were specifically identified or very obvious).


Glenshee Ski Centre - https://goo.gl/maps/LiMzthqjGLk



Dornoch Firth from the Struie viewpoint - https://goo.gl/maps/uPkNJXZUtTn


Ben Loyal from the A836 - https://goo.gl/maps/44R5bLbcpVD2


Back road to Tongue from the A836 - https://goo.gl/maps/B73j6fSNGAG2


Kyle of Tongue causeway - https://goo.gl/maps/PJpKTV2aYUp


A838 east of Hope - https://goo.gl/maps/3TeuR81EN892


Loch Eriboll - https://goo.gl/maps/SKfsiERUyrB2


Viewpoint above Ard Neckie, Eriboll - https://goo.gl/maps/1XqSMvVcpUp


A832 towards Kinlochewe and Loch Maree - https://goo.gl/maps/9NtMh6XU9Q22


Liathach (centre) and Beinn Eighe (right) - https://goo.gl/maps/whmvs5vQJrs


A896 south of Kinlochewe - https://goo.gl/maps/RnWUHjoQXVA2


Upper Loch Torridon viewpoint - https://goo.gl/maps/GEa2hZfpmou


Somewhere fairly close to the one below.


Applecross coast road betwen Cuaig and Kalnakill - https://goo.gl/maps/Q7JhgV1VRcn


A896 north of Lochcarron - https://goo.gl/maps/ViyjBVp82ys


Glen Coe - https://goo.gl/maps/182QvTw2ioG2


Nearer the top of the pass - https://goo.gl/maps/3L5jBxHmwjJ2

[bgh_187]

Top marks Red Devil!

[Red Devil]

Thanks.

Identification wasn't too difficult as the only parts of your route we didn't traverse earlier this year were the A836 (Lairg to Tongue) and Skye.
We usually only make biennial visits to the latter (in odd numbered years).

Your first photo was really easy as this was taken by one of our group on Friday 15th April.


When we reached the Lecht it was a different ball game. A white out with high winds and driven snow covering the nearside lane.
This effectively made the road single track and the lack of visibility made the climb up from Cock Bridge quite a challenge.
It was almost impossible to see anything which might be coming the other way. Luckily there was nothing until we were over the top!

[mak250300]

Lovely to see other people enjoying the roads that I have just experienced. We had planned three nights up the West Coast and it was epic.

Apart from slow drivers sitting at 40mph everywhere and not using passing places and campers the roads were amazing.

Day 1 - Laurencekirk - Aviemore - Inverness - Gairloch

Day 2 - Gairloch - Torridon - Portree

Day 3 - Portree - Armadale (there was no room on the ferry) - Fort William

We had three Clio's and they were just incredible. They had enough pace to be fun, economical (seeing over 40mpg in a few places on the display) and the handling on them is just superb.

I live in Durham so at the end it was 1186 miles we had completed in four days.

My favorite roads on the trip were the stretch from our campsite (Torvaig) towards the Old Man of Storr. I even got up early to get a few runs at it on my own. I also love the small twisty Glen Nevis road. I have traveled it a few times but still love it.

And the best bit about these threads is enjoying the photos. Sadly the lovely GT4 and the E Types were not ours.