Dornoch, Latheronwheel and John O’ Groats to Dunnet Head, the NC500

Zagan the motorhome’s perched on a clifftop, looking down over the Pentland Firth to the Orkney Islands. We’re at the most northerly point on mainland Britain, in the parking by the Dunnet Head lighthouse (N58.670534, W3.376537). The parking is free but under a late autumn sun the location is spectacular, with views as far as Cape Wrath to the west, and we’ve happily made a donation to the RSPB who maintain the site to say thanks.

Our journey here started yesterday on the north-western edge of the Cairngorms at Carrbridge, a few miles north of Aviemore. An enormous lorry joined us in the car park for the night, firing its engine at 5am and having me shaken awake thinking an earthquake was underway. The joys of free-camping! He left shortly afterwards and we drifted back to sleep, overall enjoying a good night’s kip. Once we’d persuaded our bodies another day was underway, with the liberal application of cereal and coffee, we pointed Zagan north and rolled along the A9 to Inverness, blasting straight past the city and into a rugged-looking service station we’d found sold LPG using the mylpg.eu app. Sure enough the autogas pump was there, off to one side as they sometimes are, and after brimming the tank with diesel and fiddling about with the bayonet connector we managed to refill our bottles.

We’d free-camped for 5 days by that point and had gotten through 15 litres of LPG. Our 17Kg system can carry about 34 litres so at the moment, with us running the fridge and heating for 16 or more hours a day (on low at night), we can do about 11 night’s off-grid before needing a fill up, so we’ve enough gas to get us home now. When Ju went to pay she asked whether we could grab some water too, and the assistant described where we could find the tap on the building. She also picked up a Scotch Pie, which we ate hot before we left, finding it a contained a salty grey vague meat which, although tasty, has probably deducted a few minutes from our life expectancies…

It was only a wee while later, as we crossed the Cromarty Firth on a low bridge, we realised we’ve already manage to go wrong and had missed out the start of the NC500 route which leaves Inverness via the A862. Stuff it, it’s a long-enough circuit already for the single week we’ve allowed for it, so we’re not fussed about missing small (or large) sections. Following the A9 across Dornoch Firth we took a short detour to Dornoch itself, parking by the sea and an enormous wind-swept beach for lunch and to watch a kite surfer braving the cold ocean.

From Dornoch we picked up the A9 again, with me casting glances up at snow-capped hills while concentrating hard on keeping Zagan well-placed on the road. The A9 isn’t narrow, but Zagan’s left hand drive and if I’m not careful I find myself drifting a little towards the centre of the road when driving him in the UK. Ju’s in the ‘suicide seat’ too, meaning she’s sat facing the oncoming traffic with no steering wheel to hand with which she can reposition herself away from lorries and vans hurtling towards us.

Our stopover for last night was a cracking little port beneath the village of Latheronwheel (N58.27052, W3.38070). A narrow, grass-lined road dropped us into the small car park, with a BBQ area and seats, which again was free but we made a donation in the box provided. This isolated little place, in a small valley between the cliffs alongside a bracken-watered stream flowing under an old, precarious-looking arched stone bridge, was a perfect place to rest up. The port was built around 1840 ‘at the height of the herring boom’, according to a heritage sign, and was once home to a 50-strong fleet of boats operated by the locals. The port had its own small lighthouse and icehouse, both now derelict and ruined.

This morning we woke to ice. Warm inside Zagan, we’d not noticed the temperature dropping to below zero overnight and the entire car park and access road were sheet ice, the overnight rain having frozen solid. I’d decided to nip out for a run down a path signed the John O’ Groats Coast Path, and having slid my way across to the start, I quickly managed to lose the damn thing, finding myself edging along the top of a cliff thinking “by ‘eck, this can’t be right”. It wasn’t. Rather than backtrack and risk life and limb again, I found a way through fields and ran on the roads instead.

Thankfully the sun’s shone today and by the early afternoon the ice was mostly gone, freeing us to head back up the A9 and relentlessly north, through small towns and huge swathes of autumnal countryside, another 40 miles or so to the iconic John O’ Groats. Like Land’s End, there’s not much up there, but unlike Land’s End, you don’t have to pay a tenner to grab a photo with the iconic signpost, huzzah! The other noteable thing so far has been perhaps how few motorhomes and campervans we’ve seen. There were three others in the John O’ Groats car park, but other than that we’ve only seen a handful on the road.

Having ticked the John O’ Groats box, we headed a few more miles north-west to here, taking in the first stretch of single-width road (with passing places, marked with white diamond signs) on the route. A single car came the other way, requiring us to pop in a short reverse, but visibility was good and the drive was easy. Pulling into the empty car park, it was worth every second too, the view and feeling of being here are both tip top folks, bob on!

Right, it’s 4pm and the sun’s going down. Hot milk has been supped and the evening is starting! So far so good on the NC500. Cheers, Jay