Critique / suggestions for a Scottish road trip

[Nigel_O]

After our very enjoyable run round most of the NC500 last September, my son and I are taking my V8 Vantage around Scotland again in early October. We were blessed with good weather for most of last year's trip, but we're under no illusions that going in early October could be somewhat less favourable.

Anyway - we're looking for suggestions on what to see / do, places to go, from people who've done it a lot, and of course any local PH'ers

Requirements:

• The trip is predominantly about driving - we're aiming for 1,500 miles in 6 days and we have some fairly hefty mileage targets for some days.
• We're looking for excellent driving roads and epic scenery
• We're both into photography, so we like a decent landscape, although we're not going to hike for hours to get a picture of a hill or a lake...
• We're thinking ahead about stopping points and decent places to stop for lunch (although we're not 'foodies', so we don't need Michelin-starred stuff)
• All the hotels are already booked, so the start/end points of the day are non-negotiable. All the bits in between are up for grabs and flexible.

Here's the draft itinerary:

Day 1 - Staffordshire to Dunoon, via the Hunter's Quay ferry - 300 miles / 6 hours

Day 2 - Dunoon to Tyndrum via Inveraray and Oban - 170 miles / 4.5 hours



Possible stops:

• Inveraray
• McCaig's Tower & Battery Hill
• Castle Stalker
• Cruachan Hydro Station (closed?)
• Loch Awe . Kilchurn Castle

Day 3, Part 1 - Tyndrum to Glenfinnan via the 'Scotburgring' - 88 Miles / 2.5 hours



Overnight in Tyndrum purely to have an early blat through Glencoe - one of the highlights of an earlier trip I did on my own

Stops:

• Corpach shipwreck
• Glenfinnan viaduct in time for the cheesy tourist shot of the Jacobite Express

Day 3, Part 2 - Glenfinnan to Balmacara, via the Mallaig ferry and a loop of Skye - 160 miles / 5 hours



This feels like a huge day's driving with little time for much else (not a problem) but I'd like to see:

• Old man of Storr (might have to send my drone up if hiking takes more than half an hour)
• Kilt Rock waterfall

Day 4 - Balmacara to Kylesku, via the Applecross Loop - 185 miles / 5.5 hours



We didn't do the Applecross Loop last year, so I'd like to do it this time, especially now it has been resurfaced.

Stops:

• Bealach na Ba
• Applecross
• Torridon / fly-past of Get Carter's house ;-)
• Possible dolphin-sighting boat trip from Ullapool?

Day 5 - Kylesku to Nethy Bridge, via Lairg & Tongue - 250 miles / 6.5 hours



Another big driving day, but we can always cut out the northern-most loop if required and go from Syre to Kinbrace on the B871

Stops:

• Not much really, other than the obligatory play on the Kylescu Bridge, which we did last year

Day 6 - Nethy Bridge to home, via the Old Military Road over the Cairngorms, with a possible stop at the Kelpies if we're not too jaded by then - 410 miles, 8 hours

All suggestions / amendments / warnings welcome

Edited by Nigel_O on Wednesday 17th September 18:47

[Nigel_O]

Leggerly said:

I m not sure why d you want to go from Lairg to Bettyhill on day 5. It s all single-track road and in places the surface is terrible. Especially at Naver Bridge which is in process of being replaced. Strath Halladale is another 40 miles of single-track and the added bonus of suicidal wind farm workers attempting to break the sound barrier in Jacks Rental vans.

Thanks for the feedback - just the sort of info I’m looking for.

I don’t mind some single-track, especially if it’s not full of slow camper vans. I think I read on PH that this was a fairly good stretch of single-track - open and well-sighted.

Would I be better going straight up to Tongue on the A836, or should I just bale out at Syre at turn south on the B871?

[Nigel_O]

5 In a Row said:

Glenfinnan will probably be heaving and parking - when we visited 3 or 4 years ago - very limited with a lot of vehicles just parked at the side of the road for about a mile each way.

The visitors shop was full of tourists and there were a lot of people milling about near the bridge waiting for their ideal photo.

It might've been upgraded a bit since then but not sure.

I was there in May last year and there’s a big car park, well away from the road. We’ll still be arriving decently early though, as it’s a few minutes walk up the hill to the viewing spot

[Nigel_O]

Road trip completed - thanks for all the suggestions.

My youngest son (Matthew) and I shared the driving. I'd paid for four of the hotels up front, Matthew paid for the first hotel, plus all the fuel and meals. We ended up less than £10 apart after 1,750 miles and north of £2k spent.

A photo-heavy summary:

Day 1 - Staffordshire to Dunoon, via the Kelpies

350 miles / 7.5 hours driving. The weather started OK, but got very grey after Carlisle. We got a few photos at the Kelpies before the sideways rain started.





A horrible commute through Glasgow rush hour in the rain. First night stop at the Esplanade Hotel in Dunoon. Really cheap at £55 pp, per night. It was cheap for a reason....



Day 2 - Dunoon to Tyndrum (the long way round)

168 miles / 5 hours driving.



Some really nadgery single track stuff and some really miserable weather.

Car was still shiny at this point:



This was a local viewpoint, but without the view...



By Oban, the car was looking like this...



Cleaned the car at Tesco's jetwash in Oban (waste of time..), took a few photos of McCaig's Tower and then headed off for Loch Awe





Got to the Muthu Ben Doran hotel in Tyndrum. £89 pp per night and much better than the previous night's accommodation



There was a bit of a cock-up with the rooms, so Matthew got an upgrade...



Day 3.1 - Tyndrum to Glenfinnan

75 miles, 2 hours. Weather was wet and grey



I'd driven Glencoe on my own in 2024 and thought it was amazing, so I wanted Matthew to experience it. Sadly, it was wet again...



However, Matthew had really got the hang of the car by this point and made "excellent progress" across Rannoch Moor, through Glencoe and down to Fort William. PS4S really have no right to be that good in inclement weather



We stopped off at Caol for some photos of the shipwreck



and then headed to Glenfinnan for THAT photo of THAT train. It was rammed and I got a ticket for parking with two wheels on the footpath...





Day 3.2 - Glenfinnan to Kyle of Lochalsh, via a lap of Skye



It was supposed to be 160 miles and about 5 hours of driving, but soon after leaving Glenfinnan heading for Mallaig, we found that the ferry to Armadale had been cancelled. We did a U-turn and drove an extra 90 miles back to Fort William, up to Invergarry and across to Skye via the bridge. Total mileage was probably close to 250 and about 7 hours.

It was also at this point that the weather turned really nasty. All the way round Skye we didn't even get out of the car. We tried the Quiraing single track, but a helpful local coming the other way stopped us after about half a mile and told us we'd lose our front bumper and probably our tyres in the potholes. So we went the long way round Skye. I'd like to say it was picturesque, but we didn't really see any of it. The planned stop at Storr was abandoned as we couldn't see more than 200m and the rain was VERY sideways.

The only highlight of that day was the odo reaching 74,000



Evening stop at the Balmacara Hotel - £140 pp per night - very nice



Day 4 - Kyle of Lochalsh to Kylesku, via the Applecross loop



185 miles and about 5.5 hours of driving.

Woohoo! - the roads were dry, so we made VERY good progress along some utterly sublime roads. Fuel consumption wasn't very good on Day 4....

Bealach Na Ba





Applecross



Arrived at the Newton Lodge hotel, near Kylesku. £177 pp per night. Cosy and homely, but more like a posh B&B than a hotel. Evening meal at the Kylesku hotel.



Day 5 - Kylesku to Nethy Bridge, via Lairg, Tongue and John O'Groats



310 miles, 8 hours driving.

Overnight, the weather had been very poor. Driving rain and very strong winds. The whole hotel was creaking during the night, so we didn't get a lot of sleep. We were fearing the worst for the long day we had planned. We had our first smoked salmon breakfast of the trip, watching the horrible weather out of the panoramic windows of the hotels dining room.

Kylesku bridge - sideways rain again, so not much playing around...



However, as we turned east onto the single-track down to Lairg, the weather cleared and we were treated to our first proper sunshine of the trip. The single-track was open, mostly fast, empty and very picturesque.





We'd planned to pick up the A9 from Thurso down to Inverness and Nethy Bridge, but Matthew (being the soppy sort - only got married last month), decided he wanted to buy his wife something from the John O'Groats gift shop, so we did a lengthy detour, had lunch there and then set off for our last overnight at...

...the Nethy Bridge Hotel. £89 pp per night. The hotel is a bit 'tired', but quite homely AND we had the best evening meal of the trip - Haggis!



Day 6 - Nethy Bridge to Staffordshire, via the old Military Road across the Cairngorms

410 miles, 8 hours of driving

We did the Old Military Road in a northerly direction on the way to last year's NC500 trip. I drove most of the really interesting bit, so I let Matthew drive from Nethy Bridge to Stirling and I did the boring slog back to Staffordshire. Conditions were mixed over the Cairngorms, but Matthew had an excellent time, even when it was a bit wet.

Obligatory Old Military Road picture from the usual layby...



At some point that day, the odo passed 75,000 miles, but its a cropped photo for some reason... ;-)



The car was utterly filthy by the time we got back, so Matthew and I cleaned it the next day:





And that's it - 1,749 miles, 347 litres of fuel, three cans of octane booster when I couldn't find super-unleaded. £2,162 total spend

Clearly its an enjoyable trip in a special car, but anywhere in the Highlands, especially the west side would be great fun in almost any car. I'm seriously thinking of doing some of it again in winter in my Yeti 4x4. If you haven't done the Highlands, just do it, but maybe earlier in the year if you want some decent weather...

[Nigel_O]

Leggerly said:

I saw you somewhere between Tongue and Melvich, can t remember where.

What were you driving / riding? Despite the weather, we saw a few nice cars en-route. Couple of Lotii (Elise, Emira), various Porsches, another Aston, a lurid green Maclaren.

I seem to recall we were travelling at a fair pace eastbound after the intermediate singletrack stuff further west

[Nigel_O]

high side said:

A few of us were in the same hotel

I was wondering if they were PH’ers cars. Love the wheels on your 911

[Nigel_O]

loskie said:

Great to see folks enjoying Scotland but please be reminded that it's not a theme park or playground for the privileged.

Good point, well made. Whilst we enjoyed ourselves in the NSL sections, we were very careful and courteous through towns, even the ones with a daft 20mph limit. I suspect we cheesed off more locals by doing close to 20mph than we did by any of the hooning….

There were one or two dawdlers that didn’t take kindly to being overtaken by a noisy sports car, but I guess any local living anywhere near the NC500 will be used to it. We were solo for the whole trip, but I imagine a large group of exotica having fun can grate a bit.

PS - it’s a cheap Aston, so I’d never say I was ‘privileged’

[Nigel_O]

Leggerly said:

I was in a Highland Council Pickup.

There’s a couple of mile stretch somewhere along the A836 that’s REALLY wide and open - was it along there by any chance?

My son mentioned that someone coming the other way looked at our car ‘making progress’ and had a wide grin on their face. I was too busy enjoying myself to pay close attention to oncoming traffic…

[Nigel_O]

Two months after the trip and I still haven’t got round to editing a video.

However, I’ve had a quick play with some of the Insta360 footage, just to learn how to use the editing software.

Rattled this quick video off - the ultra wide angle makes the speeds look high, officer…..

[Nigel_O]

“That bloody bridge” only started wobbling after you started jiggling around like a 10 year old on a diet of blue Smarties….

Wasn’t me, honest…

[Nigel_O]

Pretty sure the hills aren't quite as impressive in Belgium and Holland, although I accept that the language barrier would have been less of an issue on the other side of the channel.... ;-)

[Nigel_O]

To be fair, out of the 1,750 miles we drove, about 1,000 of them were on some of the best roads you can imagine without going for the Alps.

Yes, I could get to Strasbourg and back, but that’s hardly an exciting and varied drive with epic scenery. Add the fact that despite the SNP, Scots still drive on the left and it’s a no-brainer….