We had a great stopover at Sango Sands in Durness. Up here, the Scottish accent is strong, and even has an Irish twang to it – or so it seems. Perhaps the gang who ran the campsite were Irish – I didn’t ask.
Anyway, it’s Day 3 of the NC500 and the first thing on the list for the Five Men in a Motorhome was to head not even a mile out of Durness to Smoo Cave, a sea cave with one of the largest entrances in Britain.
The entrance chamber was formed by the ocean, whereas the inner chamber has been formed by the Allt Smoo river, of which the water drops via hole in the ceiling and a 66ft waterfall into the cave.
There were inner cave tours on offer, but I don’t think my Converse would have survived such a geological adventure.
Still, Smoo Caves is definitely worth placing on your NC500 to-do list.
Durness is the north-eastern tip of the NC500 route so our next leg would take us south and properly into the Highland mountains.
The clouds matched the terrain in becoming noticeably moodier.
And the roads became (if possible) even narrower. We had a big drive today of around 94 miles – which on roads this narrow is a van a big old motorhome like ours was an ordeal. We were starting to see signs that read “not suitable for caravans or coaches” – and as Rimor was somewhere in between both of those things, I was worried.
As you’re on a pretty famous route, you come across other motorhomes too. However, all the drivers (and most of the cars) were pretty courteous.
After around two hours of tense driving we arrived in Drumbeg, a tiny little village and the very definition of “middle of nowhere”. At Drumbeg you will find a viewpoint.
As we’d been shacked up for a few hours, we needed to get out of Rimor. We asked a Frenchman to take a photo of us.
For some reason, the Frenchman was a little rude to me. Very uncharacteristic.
It was only a brief stop. Back in the van we were heading towards Stoer, as Rob and Brendan wanted to see the Old Man of Stoer. Now, in April I had visited the Old Man of Storr on Skye, and I felt I’d had my fill of Old Men. Plus, I had no means of walking the 3km from the lighthouse to the Old Man without getting wet feet. I decided to stay in the van at the lighthouse. So did everyone else when they realised they’d have a massive 6km round trip to undergo.
You can actually rent out this lighthouse. I was absolutely interested.
It had been cloudy all day but now blue skies had emerged and the sun was lovely and warm. There were only a few old people in the vicinity, no litter, no planes in the sky, no distant motorway, no ships in the sea – just the taste of salt on the wind, the smell of the ocean, the baaing of sheep, the warm sunshine and views for days. Sensuous tranquillity.
The cliffs were a fantastic place to relax and wait for dinner.
Back at the van, Chef Andy was cooking up some beef burgers, toasting some buns and melting some cheese.
It all made for pretty sound BBQ picnic. There are worse places to eat.
While Andy melted his spatula, Joel strummed on his guitar, and we came up with our first Five Men in a Motorhome song.
We spent a good two hours just absolutely chilling at Stoer lighthouse but eventually, we had to move on. It’s the life of the traveller!
Day 3 and a good thousand miles in and this was my first time in the front. I picked a good time because the scenery was amazing. It was like we were driving through Spain, not Scotland. This part of the world is called Assynt and I love it’s sparseness. Soon, we reached Loch Assynt and spotted a stunning castle rising up from the water.
The ruins of Ardvreck Castle stand on a rocky peninsular jutting out into the loch. It’s reachable by a thin slither of beach and it’s beautiful.
Now kids, you’re not supposed to climb upon castle ruins like this. Here are examples of how foolish you’ll look if you do.
As we were leaving in the van, we finally spotted some deer. We rolled on through the mountains, passing from the county of Sutherland into Ross and Cromarty. At around 7:30pm we arrived in Ullapool – by far the largest settlement for miles around. We saw our first Tesco since Thurso near Dunnet Head, and inside there was a beautiful girl on the checkout with a beautiful accent. The Scottish accent on girls is heavenly. What wasn’t heavenly was my tea.
We had walked around a number of restaurants but as most of the gang didn’t want to pay “expensive” (normal) prices for good food, we ended up going to the chippy. Andy and Joel had wanted to go to the Indian but I was having none of it. I didn’t come all this way, deep in the Scottish Highlands, to have a curry. So the outcome was this. Those rings aren’t onion rings – oh no. That’s calamari, deep inside a thick batter. It wasn’t great. The chips were alright though but the rain did spoil them.
Joel announced that he did not like Ullapool at all and most agreed with him. Tbh I think we arrived at a bad time – it was grey, drizzly and late. We fuelled up and left in search of a stunning beach Rob had suggested, and where we would stay the night.
As the sun closed in on the horizon, it dipped below the clouds and lit up the sky like a bonfire. Suddenly, we found ourselves in a genuinely exciting race – could we reach the beach before sunset? At first, we weren’t hopeful…
But we timed it perfectly. The beach was absolutely empty. Brendan orgasmed a number of times as we parked up, grabbed our phones and ran to the water’s edge. Joel, Andy and I took of our shoes and socks and stepped into the surf. Would you believe it if I told you the water was pretty effing cold?
Here’s Andy recreating a scene from Baywatch.
Shout out to Rob for suggesting this beach. At the time we had no idea where we were – in this part of Scotland I had my longest spell without internet – but I later learned it’s called Gruinard Beach near Laide.
The only bad thing about this beach were the midges. OMG the midges. As soon as we’d left Rimor we were being bombarded. We were dowsing ourselves in Brendan’s bug spray and it was having zero effect. Better still, in all the excitement we had needlessly left van doors open and lights on, and by the time we got back to the motorhome it was infested. Absolutely infested.
We hadn’t brought any fly spray so we had to use air freshener, deodorant and kitchen roll to kill and wipe up the buggers. We had to move on and find somewhere else less buggy.
About three miles up the road we pulled into a lay-by and took out the last of the midges. Our motorhome was now full of sand and dead bugs. So much for trying to keep it tidy. This lay-by did not harbour a fly colony but nor did it offer me any internet coverage; I was forced to talk to my comrades until we all turned in for the night. Still, it had been an almost perfect end to a pretty awesome day.
If you’d like to consume this blog in vlog form then here’s my Instagram story from the day. If not, well, move along.
#VidOnTour 