Scotland North Coast 500 October 2016

   Left home at 3a.m. Wednesday morning, met Darren at junction 3 of the M25 at about 3:45 and headed North. We stopped at Peterborough services for breakfast, and then headed  for Hadrian's Wall as Darren had missed it on a previous trip due to his bike messing about. We followed the wall for about 30 miles, then headed up the M6 etc. until we got to Inverness 660 miles later. A campsite was soon found about 2 miles west of Inverness, and the tents were soon set up.

It was quite cold that night, probably about 1 degree above freezing, and as I had left my sleeping mat behind, a trip to Go Outdoors the next morning was in order. We also went looking for a cafe for breakfast, the first one was in a pedestrian precinct which was no good as we couldn't keep an eye on the bikes, the next "cafe" we found only did soups and vegetables, probably run by the "knit your own sandals" brigade, then found out there was a Morrissons nearby, so we soon got ourselves outside of a "full Scottish bigger breakfast".
   Next on the agenda was a visit to a motorcycle shop near the campsite, as I needed a new balaclava, and Darren came up with the great idea of photographing the map of the NC500 route they had hanging up (this was to prove very useful!).
   We then headed up the East coast, which was nicer than expected, and soon arrived at John O' Groats

Next we headed West looking for a campsite at Thurso, we couldn't find it, so headed back towards John O'Groats to one we had passed earlier, but it was closed, so headed back to Thurso, and 100 yards past where we had stopped looking, we found the campsite, but it seemed to be closed, and just as we were about to head off to look for another one, I spotted someone in the shop on site, and we were soon booked in..

Next morning the usual cafe hunt but there was nothing but coffee shops, so we gave up, packed up the tents and headed West and got to a place called Melvich, and the pub landlord said we would only have to wait a few minutes for the cook to arrive, and she would cook us breakfast, which turned out to be excellent.
  Later, we went past Dounreay nuclear power station on the way to Smoo cave and went on the boat trip

The pool of water in the cave has 4 foot long eels living there, but you can only see them when the sunlight hits the water from above (there is a hole in the roof).

  After a good look around, it was time to head further West, past the Cape Wrath ferry which was closed for the winter, and then South along the twisty roads, then found a nice picturesque harbour

and then found another campsite at Achmelvich which was also next to the sea

The coast had some lovely scenery, with some white sandy beaches

Next morning we headed onto the Applecross peninsula along some amazing roads, then headed down the "Pass of the Cattle" which is quite awesome

the best bit starts about 12 minutes into the video. Next we headed back towards Inverness on mostly main roads, and back to our original campsite for the last night.

   The next morning, we packed up the gear and headed back to Morrissons for breakfast, then headed home. The round trip was 1841 miles and the bikes were perfect for this trip. below is the picture of the map...