The North Coast route has been a victim of its own signage. It was invented as a marketing idea, it worked far too well, and for a few summers it turned some of the emptiest roads in Britain into a queue of camper vans doing it in four days because a blog said four days was enough.
Four days is not enough. Four days is 200 kilometres a day on roads where the average speed is closer to forty, which means the whole trip is driving and the stops are photographs taken through a windscreen.
The bit between Durness and Tongue, which is worth an entire day on its own. Photo: Ekrulila.
How to use nine days
- Three nights in the northwest. Assynt and Sutherland are the reason the road exists.
- Two nights on the north coast proper, which is beaches, and they are extraordinary and freezing.
- Two nights on the east, which is the quiet half and much underrated.
- Two spare. Something will be shut, or the weather will hand you one perfect day that deserves to be used somewhere else.
Passing places are for passing and for letting people by. They are not viewpoints, and the single thing that makes locals despair is a car parked in one with nobody in it.
Fuel and food
Both are further apart than you expect. North of Ullapool, fill up whenever you are under half a tank, and assume the kitchen stops at eight. This is not a hardship; it is simply a different set of rules from the one the route is usually planned under.
