The Highlanding – Part 3

Day 2 – Cairngorms, the East Coast and John o’ Groats

We woke up the next morning to a glorious blue sky and a beaming sunrise. Having been the first to dig myself out of bed I jumped in the shower, which was as you’d expect from a log cabin in the middle of nowhere… terrible. As the others sorted themselves out one by one I nipped out to point the camera at the cars and our accommodation, which on the whole had been very agreeable.

Fried breakfasts were then consumed alongside many cups of tea, we settled our tabs, packed up the cars, and hit the road. From here it was only a short distance to the first ‘proper’ road on our list. Coined as ‘The Old Military Road’, it dissects the Cairngorms national park, and is actually made up of three different roads; the A93, B976 and the A939. The boundaries of it are pretty vague, but we joined it at Bridge of Cally and popped out at Speybridge. It is a road Evo magazine have described as one of the best in Europe, so of course we had to go and have a look. It turns out they weren’t lying. I find it almost impossible to put into words exactly what the road is like and I think the main reason for this is the sheer scale. I know Scotland is a big, and scarcely populated place, but you really don’t understand what this means until you’ve been there. I will try and put some perspective to it though. The Cairngorms is the largest National Park in the British Isles at a frankly astonishing 1,748 square miles, this is roughly 100 square miles larger than Somerset, and 200 larger than Greater London. We only witnessed a very small section of it, driving a reasonably straight route from top to bottom, yet the scale of this still boggles the mind. My favourite roads from our Wales trip were the B4520 which is 16 miles in length, and the A4059 which is 10 miles from start to finish. The Old Military Road is 70 miles long. Imagine driving from the centre of London, outside Big Ben if you like, and ending up next to the Mary Rose in Portsmouth. Now imagine covering that entire distance on some of the most engaging tarmac you’ve ever driven, through uninterrupted rolling countryside as far as the eye can see. I fully understand if you’re struggling with this notion, hopefully these pictures will help.

Honestly we could have spent the entire rest of the trip driving up and down this road, and gone home totally fulfilled. In fact if it wasn’t so far away I’d probably be back there right now. Alas we had many more destinations to visit on our trip so we pressed on. From Speybridge we went west, rejoined the A9, left the glorious Cairngorms behind and headed for Inverness and another date with Ms V Power. After the unbelievable morning we had experienced, Inverness acted as a big slap in the face of reality; much concrete, many people, lots and lots of traffic. We nose-to-tailed it over Kessock Bridge and up past Duncanston, before speering off right to enjoy some lunch on the banks of Cromarty Firth. The weather had remained dry and mild, although the clouds had become far more abundant than they were at 7am. Nevertheless t-shirts and shorts were the order of the day as we sat on the verge tucking into our Sainsburys meal deals, reminiscing about where we had been. Even Frank was in good spirits having not gotten wet for the best part of 24 hours.

Freshly nourished we re-joined the A9, which signalled our first encounter with the NC500 route. We weren’t overly impressed. The traffic had certainly thinned out since leaving Inverness, but was still far too dense to enjoy the road and made overtaking efforts pretty futile. We stuck with it for around 30 miles and then, after a quick stroll on the beach in Dornoch, we headed in land and off the beaten track. You know when you’re on the real back roads in Scotland as they are bumpy, blind, dusty, narrow and often so meandering you question whether they were actually built to go anywhere at all. Progress was calm and leisurely, but definitely more enjoyable than looking at a long row of brake lights on the main road. I had pretty much given up on the A9 altogether I’ll be honest, but when we re-joined it an unidentified distance up the east coast, the traffic had all but disappeared, leaving us to revel in the smooth surface, flowing corners and uninterrupted views out into the North Sea on the right hand side. There were the odd collection of locals and tourists using the same route but thankfully long, open straights were abundant so overtaking manoeuvres were performed with ease. A little too easily for me it turns out as I unintentionally left the other two cars behind and out of sight! I took the A99 turning at Latheron, headed for John o’ Groats, and pulled into a layby somewhere near Ulbster next to an interesting looking abandoned building. Adam and I waited a few minutes for the others to catch up, letting the adrenaline subside and taking the opportunity to sink a couple of supermarket brand energy drinks. A few minutes later they arrived and parked up next to the Clio, creating a perfect set up for another photo.

As the stragglers stretched their legs I wandered up to look inside the building. I would have loved to get the cars inside for a quick photoshoot but it would have involved some fairly serious re-landscaping and time was of the essence. So I made do with this shot and we set off again.

From here it was a brisk 23 mile blast to the upper-most tip of the British Isles – John o’ Groats. We had planned to stop for fuel at the Tesco in Wick, as I had assumed the largest superstore in the area would have Momentum on tap, but sadly I was wrong and they only had peasant-spec 95. So we gave it a miss and crossed our fingers that there would be some super in our over-night home of Thurso. The A99 up from Wick was interesting, mainly huge long sections of arrow-straight tarmac cutting through vast swathes of flat, barren countryside. We made good use of this by overtaking each other at high speed and generally making a lot of unnecessary noise. We arrived in the John o’ Groats car park just after 5pm, accompanied by only a handful of other cars that had made the same pilgrimage. Although the temperature was still relatively comfortable, the sky was now immensely overcast with big menacing clouds seeming to hover mere metres from our heads. Now I can’t imagine this place ever being particularly pretty, in fact I doubt it has changed much at all in the last couple of decades, but basking in the shadowy blue grimness of the current weather conditions it all seemed a little eerie and depressing. But that didn’t stop us from unleashing Adam’s selfie-stick and crowding around the famous sign-post for the trademark tourist social-media shot. I then strolled down the peer to try and find some way of turning this bleak landscape into something at least vaguely photogenic.

There was a small food shack there which promised to deliver excellent fish and chips, and collectively we decided it was close enough to dinner time to warrant finding out if this statement was true. As our haddock fillets bubbled away in the deep fat fryer I spotted a photo opportunity, and sent Adam up to the main car park to retrieve Frank’s MX5. Strictly speaking I’m not sure this area of tarmac was exactly a public thoroughfare, but no one seemed to mind as the little white sports car barked and scraped its way down towards the seafront. The sun even managed to find a brief gap in the clouds to poke its head out and see what was going on.

Our dinner was then served, which I have to admit was indeed a cracking example of the classic British dish, made even better by a warm cup of tea. There was the odd spot of moisture in the air as the last few chips were consumed, and the temperature was certainly on the way down. With some questionable glances from bemused onlookers we all jumped on the MX5, grabbing whatever appendage we could to stay aboard, and headed back up to the car park to recover the other cars.

We arrived at the “Royal Hotel” in Thurso at around 7pm to find an unbelievable lack of parking. Adam went inside to the reception desk to find out if there was a secret car park we had somehow missed, but sadly there was not. Ed and I abandoned our cars around the corner next to a dodgy looking petrol station, hoping and praying they would still be there in the morning and not on fire. The rather less secure MX5 managed to squeeze itself into a tight recess next to a fire escape which most definitely was never designed to house an automobile. With about an inch of clearance either side exiting via the normal means was not an option, so instead Frank had to wriggle himself through the roll cage and out the back of the soft-top. Dignified it was not, entertaining for everyone else it was.

It was then weather-proofed again and left to confuse any passers-by through the night, starting with one of the residents of the room above it seems!

Thurso was a bit of a grim old place I have to say, as was the hotel which had absolutely nothing Royal about it. Still it was more than adequate for us to crash out in, after sinking a few pints at a bar down the road. Interestingly the town has a bizarrely high saturation of shockingly modified Vauxhall Corsa’s, more than I have ever witnessed before in my life. Luckily even the sound of a big-bore exhaust strapped to the back of an engine the size of an ant’s briefcase was not enough to keep me awake. I’m positive that just a few seconds after my head hit the pillow, a long line of Z’s could be seen wafting slowly up from it.

Click the link below to see what happened when we woke up.

The Highlanding – Part 4