NC500 In Our Self-Built Campervan | 5 Day Itinerary | Applecross Pass

[Music] in this video we'll be driving 500 miles around scotland's scenic north coast in our campervan the nc 500 was launched in 2015 and has quickly become one of the uk's most popular touring routes we spent five days exploring this remote but beautiful part of scotland and we hope you'll find it useful when planning your own trip we made the long journey from essex to inverness which is the official starting point of the nc 500 we decided not to explore this city due to the coronavirus pandemic we tried to keep to ourselves as much as possible we were also very tired from the long journey so found a campsite to spend the night the next morning we begun the journey to jono gropes so we're about 20 miles from john the groats and uh yeah i'm just down here with a dog yeah not a bad place to sit another tea no there was that called the old that's not we stopped at the castle of old wick which was probably built in the 1100s part of it has collapsed but it still retains a dramatic presence a lot of people assume that john o'groats is the most northerly part of scotland when it's actually done ahead it soon became clear that there wouldn't be a great deal to see or do here so don't expect too much when you visit [Music] we've made it to john o'groats there's the orkney islands over there we got our photo with the iconic sign and decided to find a park up for the night [Music] this is our park up for the night it's done it head viewpoint just before about 500 mah 500 miles 500 meters down from the top this is where we are there's a few campers over there right in the distance i think we've got another van just over the other side of that bush yeah this was on park for night so we got down here probably what's the time now it was about our past eight now we got down here an hour ago and it was almost all the parking spaces were taken up apart from this one this is on a bit of a slam but get on with it didn't you stephanie jumping with her here and we've been used to 30 odd degree heat for the last fortnight so it makes a nice change it's my cooking dinner oh blue [Music] we paid a brief visit to the summit of donet head the following morning the midges were out in force so we headed back to the van to continue with our journey along the north coast we were aiming to reach derness and spend the night somewhere nearby being quite a long drive we had a couple of stops along the way to break the journey up and refuel ourselves with food that's been hope just there i'll probably climb that later or this one ben loyal just over the ridge [Music] [Music] [Music] the viewing points along the way were increasing in popularity as we approached dernis some might say the views are to die for [Music] that's ridiculous [Music] every rising [Music] any door that we walk [Music] i through never stop loving it every path that we might find [Music] anywhere life takes us [Music] after spending the afternoon at dernest beach we headed off in search of a quiet spot to spend the night there is a campsite next door to the main car park at dernes if you wish to spend the night overlooking the beach we found a beautiful park up among the mountains to enjoy our dinner and watch the sunset the following morning we headed to sandwood bay stopping along the way to admire the views sandwood is a remote natural bay on the far north west coast of scotland and is a short detour off the nc 500 route the bay can be reached by a four mile path leading from the gravel car park of blairmore the beach is considered to be one of the cleanest and most unspoiled beaches in the whole of mainland britain [Music] [Music] so we just got to sandwood bay four four mile walk dog once again it's a four mile walk from the car park so as beautiful as it is you only get a certain amount of people down here because well everyone's lazy at night so [Music] i think the hardest part of the walk is getting through the sand dunes yeah it's just it's just a gravel track all the way it's not very undulating are you doing [Music] this doesn't feel like we're in scotland it feels like we're in the caribbean or somewhere really exotic the water is so clear honestly it's beautiful if you're doing the s500 it's definitely worth taking a little detours this to this place you won't be experimented that is freezing [Music] [Music] so do you want one yeah one do you want this one we had a wonderful time at sandwood bay and was very sad to leave but i'm sure we'll return one day we took the scenic route to our next destination and the next clip may seem quite dramatic but in person this road was pretty scary in parts with very steep ups and downs on a single track mountain road my knife don't you fail me now brakes i'm not surprised this person thought this was the dangerous road oh my god for those of you watching this you can't see how steep this is but it's bloody steep girls it was definitely worth taking this route we drove through some of the most idyllic places we'd ever seen we soon found our park up for the night just outside of lochinver [Music] [Music] it was now the penultimate day of our journey on the nc 500 and we were still so mesmerized by the picture postcard scenery that we encountered [Music] we spent this day doing some van life duties we stopped to aleppo to top up our fuel water and food supplies and took some time to explore this village despite its small size it's the largest settlement for many miles and is home to an important port with ferries sailing to the outer hebrides [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] tomorrow we would be driving the breathtaking apple cross paths and we wanted to pass it in the morning in the hope it would be less congested at that time so using park for night we found a wonderful little park up just outside of torridon which wasn't too far from the starting point of our journey in the morning when he first arrives in the uk and he makes an arrangement there's a horny cow oh oh [Music] this single track road has alpine-like hairpin bends and shouldn't be attempted by novice drivers or very large vehicles it's also impossible in wintry conditions and an alternative route is signposted [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Music] goodnight [Applause] [Music] [Applause] normally at this point you would head back to inverness to complete the nc 500 however as we finished the route in five days i had a few days of annual leave remaining [Music] so we decided to check out the isle of skye and climb the iconic old man of store before beginning the long journey back home but we'll save that for our next video we really hope you enjoyed this video and if you did do consider subscribing to our channel and turning on notifications so that you never miss an upload [Music] you

Channel: Thecampervanlife

Views: 31,069

Rating: 4.9026217 out of 5

Keywords: scotland, nc500, north coast, 500, inverness, John o'groats, wick, durness, Dunnet head, sandwood bay, ullapool, applecross pass, bealach na ba, roadtrip, vanlife, van life uk, europe, self sufficient, off grid, wild camping, park ups, park 4 night, free parking, free camping, motorhome, touring, staycation, tiny home, volkswagen, crafter, sprinter, mercedes, mwb, home is where you park it, rolling home

Id: h4LxP97QZQs

Length: 19min 58sec (1198 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 31 2020