How To Do The North Coast 500 (Scotland NC500 Travel Guide)

the north coast 500 is an incredible 500 mile route stretching all around the beautiful scottish highlands it starts in inverness and takes you up to jonah roads and then back down the west coast which has to be one of the most beautiful parts of the uk i've seen hey what's going on people i am roman i'm a photographer based in london and in this video i want to share with you my north coast 500 experience specifically the route i've taken the places i've seen the places i've visited and just general tips advice and things that i've learned in this trip um the whole point of it is so that if you're researching um for your own trip in the future once you know this pandemic disappears then you can take this video and then take other videos and then put it all together so you have like a good overall idea of what it is you want to do and where you want to go and what you want to see now before going any further it's important to mention that this road trip i did with my mum which means the overall pace and the activities and the hikes were very relaxing and very chilled out if you're here because you want to know where to base jump from where to wild camp or how to summit every mountain in less than 10 minutes this is probably not the video for you however before you click off do watch it because you might learn something new that you didn't know before if you look in the description below i put timestamps for the various main parts of the video so if you do want to skip through by all means do so i do however recommend watching the whole thing because then everything will kind of make more sense now i will butcher some pronunciations if you're scottish and you're watching it i apologize i tried my best it is what it is i can't help it and finally if you're new here please do consider subscribing even though there's a photography channel i will be doing a lot more of these sort of videos as the pandemic eats off and hopefully life returns to some kind of normality so if this is your cup of tea then please do subscribe for more in the future so in total this was a 10-day trip with the first and last days being travel days to and from london the official start is in inverness however we decided to make a stop in edinburgh and then drive to inverness via cannons national park from inverness we did the route anti-clockwise because we wanted to save the most picturesque parts on the west side till later in the trip in terms of accommodation we use the various hotels and bed and breakfasts scattered around the route i'll link them all below now in terms of food we generally had breakfast at the hotel or bed and breakfast because most of them provided it lunch was on the road so we just packed some lunch in the car snacks things like that and dinner was at hotels now because we were doing it during the pandemic it was very difficult to find anywhere with food so i'm not going to go into that because hopefully by the time you're doing this trip the pandemic will be over so this will not apply to you now in terms of costs so overall for 10 days the whole trip cost us 2 000 pounds now that's bearing in mind that we had two rooms for each hotel if you're doing it with your partner or you're sharing with your friend and you only have one room that cost will come crashing down but then we also had a fairly no economical car so if you're doing it in a lambo then your cost will go up in terms of petrol stations every sort of major village had a petrol station however what i found is that if it's going to be open or closed was a bit of pot luck sometimes i'll get there and it's open sometimes i'll get there and it's closed so although there are ample petrol stations the distance between those petrol stations is quite large and you never know if they're going to be open or closed now with regards to electric charge points i did see quite a lot we were surprised with how many electric charge points all around the route the weather changes all the time it can go from hot and sunny to a full-blown hailstorm in the minute also weather forecasts at least in my experience on this trip have been largely unreliable especially on the west side we did this trip in early september so it was still warm i say warm it was between 11 and sort of 16 degrees and for comparison at the same point in london it was 30 degrees finally having spoken with the locals everyone just says don't bother coming in the winter because you literally get like a few hours of daylight the weather is horrific there's snow half the roads are shut um and everything is closed because you just don't get any tourism there in the winter so from what i understand it's around spring sort of mid spring till mid autumn is the time to go [Laughter] [Music] all of the following points are based on my experience at the time of doing this trip so let's start with maps and signal overall you did get a surprising amount of 4g signal but most of it was on the east side and on the west side you tend to only get signal when you get to a major village and even then it kind of is hit and miss so make sure you have offline maps would be a paper map or a map you can download physically on your phone i used a an app called maps.me which allows you to download full maps onto your phone it takes up a lot of room but it's definitely worth it now in terms of the navigation side of stuff everything takes like twice as long as you think so if your sat nav tells you it'll take you two hours to get from point a to point b especially on the west side with the single track roads i can guarantee it will take you three to four hours minimum not only are you going to be stopping loads and driving very slowly because of just the views you can't help it unless you live there but there are so many people there and you have to always pull you know pull to one side let people through and generally speaking um everything takes much longer so if you are gonna be on a tight schedule just keep that in mind as for fuel make sure you have at least half a tank all the time so half a tank is effectively empty for you and the reason for that is as i've mentioned before you can get to a petrol station and it's closed so you will need more fuel to get to the next special station that hopefully might be open um and definitely don't just run it down to like a quarter or less than a quarter like you would normally because you might get into trouble if you do so my advice stick it to half a tank and then when you get to half fill up again many roads are single tracks but they do have passing places i drove really slowly so every time there was someone behind i just pulled over and let them overtake it's just the most sensible thing to do and it keeps everyone happy talking of roads most of them are a piece of cake however some single tracks on very steep hills and on bends in fog and heavy rain do require you know a bit of proficiency behind the wheel so maybe not the best roads to drive on if you've literally passed your test yesterday most lay-bys do have bins so it was incredibly frustrating to see people litter so just don't litter public toilets are few and far between and mostly can be just found at the bigger villages and the smaller towns now they are funded publicly so most of them will have a tip box or a cash box on the side so if you do use them please leave a bit of money because it's the locals that actually fund them at least right now anyway and also while doing that route please try and stick to the local independent businesses and avoid all of the chains because especially now all the local businesses need all the support they can get with regards to the car i just made sure i had enough water snacks a little gas stove and just basically some sort of food and drink just in case also a few extra blankets and maybe a couple of pairs of dry socks and maybe a spare spare shoes as well if i'm going hiking in case i get wet now in terms of clothes and things like that obviously for the season that we went i still packed in layers so rather than just having one nice comfy coat i would have three or four layers because when you're walking you get warm and then the weather changes and everything changes as you'll see later in the video as for photography i had the following one camera body with a telephoto zoom lens another camera body with a general all-purpose zoom lens one ultra wide zoom one drone and an ipad pro with an external hard drive to back all the footage up the reason i had two camera bodies with those two lenses attached is because ninety percent of all the photos were taken on those two lenses and that's just from experience of being in similar places um and also a lot of the images were taken from the roadside so it was very much a case of there's good light and the scene is great quickly pull over grab let's say the zoom lens take the photo grab the general lens which is a bit wider and get the wider shot so by not having to constantly swap lenses it saves a lot of time the first day was a drive from london to edinburgh which took about seven hours and was very very boring the second day started with a quick hike up off a seat which is a really nice viewpoint and a fairly easy hike there are many different routes up however i suggest doing it as early as possible especially on nice days because it gets really busy really quickly it can also get quite slippery so bring some good [Music] footwear [Music] do after that we walked through the old town up to edinburgh castle there are some amazing views from the front of the castle the car park bit without actually going inside from then on we walked into the old town something which i highly recommend before heading into the city centre for a quick look we finished the day by going up calton hill which again offers some amazing views of the city as well as the surrounding area [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] day three was what i call a very slow travel day we basically had to get to inverness which is the official start of the north coast 500 however between edinburgh and inverness you have cannons national park and you have the snow roads in the national park which are the really high roads in the highlands and to be honest there is no way that we can just jump on the motorway and not see that so for the third day we drove all the way up the snow roads and through the heart of cairndom's national park the park is located between edinburgh and in vanessa and is honestly one of the most beautiful places i've seen in the uk i highly suggest following the snow roads rather than using the main roads the snow roads will lead you through some of the highest points in the area and pass on the most amazing views and the most interesting locations after some research i found that in this park there are many cans of khans however you pronounce it which are like these man-made stacks of stones among them is a really big one called the prince albert khan which basically looks like a mini pyramid [Music] unfortunately because the queen has a rather large house in the area the entire place is a no-fly zone so i couldn't even get the drone up and take the photo that i wanted this is where the wide-angle lens came in extra useful [Music] it's a short hike to get there but it's definitely worth it because it's a very unique thing to the uk and i certainly don't recollect of seeing anything similar anywhere else here [Music] just watch out for the midges because they will bite the out of you as i found out after seeing the scottish pyramid it was time to jump back in the car and drive up to inverness via the snow [Music] roads [Music] so finally on day four we're about to start the official north coast 500 route kind of because on day four we've decided to explore in vanessa and the surrounding area we got up extra early and headed to the very tip of loch ness from then on we casually drove up to the other end and into a small town called ford augustus no i didn't see any monsters other than the ugly mug you're looking at right now and if you're still looking please give the video a like because it will help it reach more people thanks anyway augustus it's a beautiful little town and honestly this place deserves a dedicated trip as there's so much to see and do here also if you get stuck on the bridge slash boat crossing good luck because you'll be there for a while after we crossed over we then headed back towards inverness on the other side of the lock which was definitely a more interesting drive with some cool views and some wicked mountain roads [Music] the next place on the list was the fairy glen falls a short drive from inverness however on the way there you go past the place called udale bay or udale bale whichever is the right pronunciation basically these are these oil rig looking things i guess the oil rigs it's not exactly picturesque you don't really go there on holiday but i've never seen them and i thought it looked quite cool anyway once you get to the fairy glen falls car park it's like a 30 minute easy walk up to the waterfalls the waterfalls are incredible you can even jump onto a little island right in front of them for the best view and the best experience spend a little while exploring the area because you can go a bit further up as well and see the waterfalls from the top and then slowly walk back to the car [Music] the final destination for the day was the city of inverness given the fact that we visited during the pandemic almost everything was closed so we resorted to just going for a walk up and down the river and we stumbled on the nest's walk which effectively takes you down the river and towards like a small little island you cross the bridge onto this little island in the middle of the river and honestly it's just really nice there it's just a proper chilled out just lovely walk highly highly recommended anyway once you cross over to the other side you will then walk back into town and pretty much we called it a day at that point [Music] day five was a travel day going from inverness all the way up to jonah groats with a few stops along the way the first stop being talbot ness lighthouse which is a short detail from the main route it's a fairly quick stop but the lighthouse and the surrounding area is simply stunning we spent a bit of time there took some pictures and then went for a little walk just to see what's there you don't really need much time and very quickly you can head back to the main route [Music] from that point all along the north coast route there are plenty of nice small towns where you can stop for coffee and have a look at the local beach the next stop was a big burn walk it's an easy and relaxed scenic walk through the forest the big payoff at the end is a beautiful waterfall in total the warp took us about two hours there and back and it's definitely well worth it as we made our way further up we decided to stop at the dun robin castle to be honest castles are not our thing but this one had a vast area to explore along with a coffee shop and toilets it was a worthwhile visit and if you're into your history and all that then there's plenty for you to see and learn after the castle the weather started to turn so we basically just got in the car and started to drive further north in hindsight we wish we stopped in more of the local towns and small villages but we just didn't have the time and the weather was just not favorable whatsoever by the time we got to wallygo steps the rain did stop briefly so we decided to go down and have a look the steps are steep slippery and in many parts broken and worn out as well so extra care is really really required here once at the bottom you're greeted with an amazing mini nature reserve and on a nice day you can easily kill a few hours sitting there with a drink on a day like this though after about 15 minutes we had enough and slowly climbed back up the original plan was to stop at another castle and then finish the day at jonah groves however the weather properly closed in and we had nothing but torrential rain that just didn't seem to go away every time we drove through seems completely shut i guess given the pandemic the weather and the fact it was a bit late in the day we just thought you know what let's cut it short and go back to the hotel on the way back to the hotel we were driving past dunn beach and it looked amazing because it stopped raining we literally had like an hour of daylight left figured might as well go and have a look i am really glad we made that decision the tide was fully out but because of the rain there was this thin layer of water all over the flat sand on top of that the light was amazing and there was this so much spray from the sea because it was really windy parts of the beach looked like they were covered in mist we then spent ages walking up and down the beach taking it all in and just before we were about to leave we were greeted or sort of waved goodbye by a really nice sunset so it was overall a pleasant [Music] end [Music] [Music] this was going to be a very long day now aside from the fact that we had to catch up on everything we've missed the day before due to the rain we also had to then make our way down from effectively jonah groats all the way down the west side of the island to a place near the airbnb which called puli pu pulipuli i'm sorry this is where i've learned that everything takes much longer than the satnav says we started the day with a very quick drive up to done at head which is the most northern part of the uk mainland so say it was windy is a huge understatement at times i couldn't even take a photo because my camera was just getting blown about so much once there there isn't really much to see and do other than taking the views get your hair restyled and take some photos i am sure there are some walking trails and hikes but to be honest of you given the short amount of time we've had and the fact that i didn't want to turn into a human kite we decided to leave it oneplus was on the way back we met some locals and overall they seemed very friendly even posed for a picture too the second stop of the day was john the groads which is only a 45 minute or so drive from where we were and even the weather so far seemed to behave jonah groats is mostly known as the start or finish line for a famous road trip called john and road to land's end or the other way around but basically a bunch of cyclists or people motorbikes or i guess anyone really can do that challenge if you like anyway although the most northern point is done ahead this place is definitely more well known and once you've seen the signs you've seen the little fishing port you've had a coffee and you've explored the very little place that it is you can then go for a bit of a walk to the next stop now thankfully before we even started the walk we got in the car to get our stuff and this happened so instead we decided to drive to stop number three which was done can speed stacks i honestly never seen anything like it and although i have seen photos of these before there's just no way that they convey what it's like to be there and see them in person once you've seen them and walked around the area there's not really much else to do there so we jumped back in the car and proceeded to the main part of the day [Music] so this is where the super long drive from jonah groats down to pulu started the saturn have said four hours i'll be honest with you in reality it was like seven hours for us anyway because we kept stopping but i digress the first quarter of the journey was very easy with the usual sides that we have been seeing already then about a third of the way in we started to see the big mountains in the distance which gave us a bit of hope by the halfway point we were very much on the single track roads right in the middle of the west side in the middle of the mountains the lakes and all of that amazingness now i'll be honest this was by far the longest and the most tiring part of the drive however definitely the most spectacular the last quarter was still very much in the mountains but the roads have opened up so it was much easier to make progress honestly the whole area and the whole drive was just incredible um i'm just gonna shut up and i'll show you a few clips and a few pictures from that drive [Music] [Music] not gonna lie but even after a proper sleep i woke up on day 7 absolutely knackered from the previous days driving also the fact that i've been driving for like three four days because my mum doesn't drive so i was doing all the driving it it just built up and built up so that's another thing i've learned is if you can share the driving do it but if you can't share the driving then you need to plan rest days um throughout the trip with all that in mind day seven was just gonna be a chill day we would still go out and do stuff but we'll stay in the local area and we won't do anything too intensive or too long so the first stop was a very popular place but one i really wanted to photograph it is of course the view of loch marie from glen doherty the viewpoint is probably the easiest one i've ever been to it's literally just a car park and although you can get good photos from the ground i found the best compositions were from the sky by using the drone after taking a million photos and getting loads of video we then jumped back in the car and went to a place called ben a nature reserve even when driving between all of these amazing places you still pull over all the time just to get the views in it seems like around every corner and around every turning there is a different view that kind of just stops you in your tracks anyway we got to bene and although you can spend the whole day hiking many trails we just couldn't be bothered so we stayed by the lake and chilled out i would definitely want to come back here just to explore more because there are so many hikes there are so many trails it's a shame to just stay in one spot after we were done here we jumped back in the car and drove to the last stop of the day which was a red point beach as the name suggests there is a reddish pinkish hue to the sand and once you get over the sand dune you're greeted with a really nice beach i am sure on a nice sunny day we would have spent hours here with a picnic but to be honest with you given the grey sky the wind the showers we just didn't feel very welcome very warm and we basically just had enough and wanted to go back to the hotel so we dashed back up this engine which was a bit of a laugh jumped in the car and went back [Music] at this point i want to say a huge thanks to alan from the branch art bread and breakfast that he owns um in no way is this sponsored or anything like that we paid full price um but honestly i just want to give credit where credit is due he was an amazing host the place was super clean super nice the breakfast was probably the best um fry up i think i've ever had the views from the living room and generally he was a really nice person and he you know went out of his way to make sure that we knew exactly where we were going and there were a few places they told us not to go and told us to go to a different place which gave better views etc etc [Music] for day eight we've picked one location and one stop but there's a few good reasons for it so sandwood bay from what i've researched is like the top one of the top wild beaches in the uk i say wild because to get to it you have to walk for four miles it's a four mile hike for the middle of nowhere to just get to this beach so as you can imagine it's not full of kids with like inflatables and picnics and all that sort of stuff on top of that it means we would effectively retrace our route all the way back up the west side which will give us a completely different perspective to the one we had a couple of days ago and finally to top everything off when we looked out the window the weather was banging it was sunny it was nice yeah a few showers here and there but generally it was warm and it was nice so here is a quick montage of footage and pictures of our drive from the bed and breakfast to the start of the high course [Music] [Music] once we got to the start of the four mile walk we met another local posed for a picture had a chat and then set off for what would be a rather interesting few hours the walk itself was very easy with a nice path all the way aside from a few stream crossings [Music] as always the views didn't disappoint and we even went past a few lakes as we arrived at the start of the june we decided to walk along the top of the dune to try and get a nice landscape view of the whole area at this point however literally within seconds the sun disappeared and we found ourselves in the middle of a pretty decent rain shower after failing to find any cover we just decided to embrace it wait it out and what a great decision that was because moments after the rain had passed we were greeted with probably the most beautiful rainbow i think i've ever seen it started in the sea then went into the land it stayed there for ages so we can just photograph it and film it it was amazing the beach definitely had a very wild and a very raw feeling to it you can tell that you didn't want to get stuck here on your own you know especially given the fact that your car and potential help was like four miles away it really sort of exaggerated the remoteness of this place [Music] [Applause] [Music] after a little bit we started heading back and so far all was well however the all was well mood very soon started to change because we saw what was the most disgusting looking storm brewing in the distance and given the fact that the wind was blowing in our direction i had a pretty bad feeling about it not long after said bad feeling a light shower started which very quickly turned into a heavy shower and then very quickly turned into a horrific wind and horrific rain shower and before we knew it we were in the middle of a hailstorm and rainstorm and it was just complete and utter chaos i also knew i up because at that exact moment i wish i listened to my own advice and didn't leave the waterproofs in the car as you can imagine the remaining three and a half miles of that hike felt like 35 miles you can literally take any piece of clothing on me do that with it and then just water everywhere when we did make it to the car not far from the car park was like a little restaurant that was doing takeaway and they had this amazing like hot chili soup which was just game changing completely game changing anyway the rest of the day we just drove back to the bed and breakfast really it was very damp but it was a good day and a good drive and as an added bonus we had some really nice light for when we went over the bridge i can't remember what it's called i'll put it here and got some really nice pictures so overall that day was adventurous but absolutely no regrets well worth the visit to sandwich bay [Music] day nine was kind of bittersweet because even though we're about to drive on some of the coolest roads in the uk we also knew that it was the last full day in the highlands before we're driving back to london we only had two stops planned but the first one being lower diabag which i've definitely absolutely mispronounced but even the drive to the start of that drive did not disappoint [Music] lower diabag is a remote coastal fishing town and to get to it you need to drive along an amazingly twisty mountain road which just provides non-stop stunning views the town itself is small but very nice and i highly suggest visiting it it's an ideal place to go for a walk along the beach and the whole place has a proper old school little seaside fishing town feel to it there's even a pub [Music] to get back onto the main road we had to retrace our route back along the mountain road which as expected provided countless views [Music] the final part of the journey involved a drive along the apple cross route which is i guess the scottish version of an alpine pass the start of the route was fairly relaxed and similar to the previous views we've had isn't it strange how quickly you adapt to your surroundings so what was once an amazing view like three days ago now is just hm it's all right anyway after the first half was done we ended up at the apple crossing where we had some coffee and proceeded to the main attraction unfortunately we were unlucky that day because the clouds were thick and covered pretty much the entire area as we slowly started climbing the visibility dropped significantly and at the very top you really couldn't see anything do on the way down is where things got more interesting and we even got a glimpse of what the view could have been the road got twisty it got narrow it got very steep and it very much felt like a proper alpine pass to get back down didn't take any time at all and only after pulling over and looking back up did we actually understand the scale of this place [Music] i also feel very sorry for anyone who was cycling up that road because i have never seen so many facial expressions all pointing towards what the have i got myself into type thought after this we slowly drove down the rest of the north coast 500 route to our final hotel and our final stop day 10 was a travel day back to london now we drove along the rest of the north coast 500 route back to inverness i don't know maybe it was the fact that i was just exhausted maybe it was the fact that it was heavy rain but i just didn't really get much out of that last leg which went from effectively the west to east it was cool don't get me wrong but it was not like oh my god i need to pull over and take the picture once we got to inverness it was a 12 and a half ish hour drive back to london now if we had an extra day we probably would have stopped over edinburgh but we just thought you know was do the whole lot in 12 and a bit hours and the best thing about the whole drive is by the time we got to london london was having a bit of a heat wave so when we got out of the car we got out in like 28 degrees it felt like getting out on holiday like you know when you go to like spain or portugal and you get off um get off the plane and you get sort of this wall of heat that's how it felt like being back in london but anyway i digress that's it day 10 was done [Music] although i have absolutely zero regrets about any aspect of this trip there are a few things which i think i will do differently next time i go first of all i will do this trip in june and not in september the main reason for it is the daylight now you do have one negative which are even more midges but i can deal with that it's just a daylight because from what i've been told you get like 20 hours of daylight if you especially if you go further north you might even get more and that just gives you so much freedom and so much more opportunity to see and do more before it goes dark if i'm driving up from london again i would still stop at edinburgh it's just a nice city you can get some food you can relax and overall the pace is just a bit more chilled out i would also still go through kendon's national park but the only difference is i would actually allocate two days for the national park because there's just so much to see and do there and i certainly felt rushed when i was there this time from then on i would head towards inverness but i would not stay in vanessa i would actually go to the augustus little town that i mentioned earlier and stay there i would then spend a solid two days just focusing on loch ness because when i was there we literally had like a morning and i really wanted to go into the museums i wanted to see you know what they were trying to do to find this monster i wanted to get on a boat and go for a cruise for half a day so to do all these things you do need like a couple of days there and i would definitely add that to the next trip from then on i would start the north coast 500 route going west side first so start at the bottom and then go up to john groats on the west side and i would allocate i reckon nine days if possible just for that west side because there's so much that we've missed out now i know it's a lifetime's work to see everything but to see all the major things you do need more time like the major beaches the major castles and things like that so definitely nine days or so for the west side and just very slowly work my way up and also have a few more stops so rather than having one central base maybe have three different stops and that way you don't have like a five hour drive back every time you go a bit further afield i would then head all the way up to john the groats which is effectively where i will finish the trip spend a f you know a day or so there and then drive back south along the east side [Music] so if you're still with me thank you so much this is probably by far the longest video i've done and thank you for sticking with me and for watching it i do hope that you got some useful information at least you managed to get laugh out of this video with me looking like a drowned rat but anyway thank you as i've said earlier if you look in the description i've put as much information as i possibly can to help you plan your trip if you do have questions though get in the comments and then i will reply to your questions as soon as i can overall i am 100 happy i've done the strip i can't wait to go back again and the only real downer on the whole experience was the pandemic i'm sure when it's non-pandemic times in the future then this trip will definitely be a lot more enjoyable anyway that's enough of me chit chatting if you're new here like i've said before please do consider subscribing because although this is a photography channel i will be doing these videos more and more as the world slowly goes back to normal and that's it thank you for your time hope you have a fantastic day whatever it is you're doing and i'll see you in the next video in a bit [Music] you

Channel: Roman Fox

Views: 278,727

Keywords: NC500, North Coast 500, Scotland

Id: kUwjYMuEI6M

Length: 45min 30sec (2730 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 14 2020