Day 3 – The Big North Coast
The trademark big-plate breakfast awaited us the next morning, with the added bonus of small piece of fried haggis which utterly failed to impress a single one of us (sorry Scotland). We grabbed our bags and made our way back outside where we were delighted to find none of our cars had been even the slightest bit stolen. Well me and Ed were delighted, Frank may have been less so as he contemplated a further 250+ miles in his less-than endearing cabin. He put things off as long as possible, enlisting Adam to gain re-entry via a quick bit of parkour.
Having been dissatisfied with Tesco’s selection of pump juice, we were immensely pleased to find a Gleaner station just down the road from the hotel which offered the magical super soup. We all brimmed our tanks, and Ed and Frank both re-filled their back up jerry cans. The Clio’s 55litre bladder had proved just about adequate for the previous day’s ventures, meaning my jerry was still full. This should have left me somewhat smug, had some quick mental arithmetic not established my miles-per-gallon to be easily the worst of the three.
The depression of this notion soon disappeared though as we were greeted by the station owners fantastically friendly (and rather furry) apprentice.
Nobody was 100% sure how to escape the confines of Thurso and continue our adventure across the North Coast, so I decided to jump in the navigator seat and let Adam have a play in the Clio. We quickly rediscovered the A9, and then hopped onto the A836 which hugged the shore line for around 40 miles before reaching Tongue. This was an amazing stretch, very similar to the A99 we had taken the previous day, with extensive straights of wide open road joined together with well sighted sweeping bends. With barely any traffic to impede our progress Adam was having a wonderful time making use of Clio’s 194 ponies, however I, as the legal guardian of said ponies, was just a little bit scared…
We pulled into a layby somewhere near Bettyhill to let the cars cool down a bit, and I set the GoPro up in the Lupo’s cockpit in order to record some of Ed’s master pedal-work. And obviously I couldn’t miss another opportunity to dig the Canon out of the footwell.
I’ll be honest, sitting in the passenger seat alongside Adam wasn’t excessively unnerving (contrary to what I might tell him) but I was already champing at the bit to kick him out and get jiggy with the steering wheel again, which is exactly what I did. I felt a little bit selfish given he had only had a short stint in the hot seat, but hey he should have brought his own car! Happily I seemed to have chosen just the right point to regain control, as the road began to change just moments later. The boundaries closed in both sides and the turns started to arrive thicker and faster than before, the increased technicality making the experience far more exhilarating. It stayed this way through to our next stop in a small gravel layby just outside Tongue, looking out over one of many glorious Loch’s which flow in from the North Sea. I arrived first, followed swiftly by the others, and such was the beauty of the location it seemed to compel everyone into a photographic stupor. Why on earth did I pack this cumbersome DSLR when lying on the floor with a smart phone is clearly the proper thing to do?
Whilst Frank and Adam wandered around getting all Instagram I decided it was the right time to document the packing situation inside the compact Clio. Advanced level Tetris was needed to cram the luggage into the boot, yet it still managed to spill out onto the back seats and into the footwells. Still, with all that gear in the back it may well have helped neutralise the cars handling characteristics somewhat, seeing as unloaded its weight distribution is comically front-biased.
From Tongue we headed South, back in land, on a road that Top Gear had informed me was “one of the best in Europe” – the A836. Now I’ve not driven the vast, vast majority of the roads in Europe, so I am hardly qualified to offer an argument for or against such a statement, but what I can say is this: that road was definitely a little bit special. Predominantly single track, far from silky smooth under-tyre, yet rarely rough enough to cause an issue, and an amiable mix of open and well sighted sections and more enclosed twisty bits. But the best thing – it was, as-near-as-makes-no-difference, totally deserted. I certainly wouldn’t classify it as the quickest of roads, mainly due to its scant boundaries with zero run off, but you wouldn’t want to be travelling on the edge of sanity anyway, as you would miss the opportunity to marvel at the absolutely unfathomable scale of the landscape surrounding it. When we found ourselves slap bang in the middle of such an opportunity, we had to stop, kill the engines, and stagger around with our jaws on the floor for a bit. Miles, and miles, and miles of… nothing. Or at least nothing man-made anyway, with the exception of the thin ribbon of tarmac dissecting it. Ever need reminding of just how small and insignificant you are as a human-being? Bring a deck chair and sit in the middle of the A836 for a while. Chances are you won’t get run-over
Once we had finished re-evaluating our life goals, our species, and the meaning of the universe, we gathered up our respective bottom-lips and pointed our steering wheels south once more. The road continued in much the same vein, nicely respectable in terms of driveability, but totally overshadowed by the impressiveness of the scenery. (I feel like that last sentence deserves to be in the middle of an Eminem spit, but I digress.) In fact we were so enthralled that we ended up travelling much further than we had originally intended, finding ourselves near a village called Lairg, some 40 miles in land from Tongue. After grabbing a sandwich from the village shop, we rejected the idea of turning around and doing the road in reverse, as was the original plan, and instead decided to take a right hand turn onto the A838. This squiggled its way diagonally across the country towards the far North-Westerly tip of the Highlands. Frank buzzed over the walkie-talkie a little while later informing us of his desire to dip into the emergency fuel stash, so we pulled over in an unusually large layby on the edge of the unusually large Loch Shin – 17 miles in length no less. The Loch, not the layby. Frank performed the deed, and decided he would entice out the few remaining fumes from Captain Jerry by bungee-cording it to the back of his roll cage, thus minimising the potential fire hazard. Did I mention he was a physics teacher?
The A838 was very similar to the A836, with the same width and quality of tarmac, similarly dominated by fantastic scenery, and a total lack of traffic. But sorry Top Gear, in driving terms I think it was a league ahead. Noticeably faster and freer-flowing than its brethren, thanks to longer straights and shallower corners allowing for much longer stamps on the loud pedal. We took it all the way to Laxford Bridge without any further stoppages, and it was glorious. Here it turned into a T-junction that pointed left down the west coast towards our overnight accommodation, and right up to the far corner of the North Coast – Durness. We had planned to visit Durness anyway, albeit from a slightly different direction. Mainly through fear of missing out on something we hastily decided it would be a great idea still to do so, despite the fact we would need to double back on ourselves once we got there.
So we remained officially on the A838, although with the right hand turn it had temporarily morphed into something we hadn’t experienced for quite a while… a proper double width road, with actual real-life white lines and everything. We celebrated this fact with some high speed cruising, revelling in the lack of worry about having a huge head-on with a Zafira coming the other way at every blind crest. Alas this only lasted a few miles before it turned back into single track, almost without warning. I use the word ‘alas’ sarcastically of course, as it was yet more astonishing single track. Mostly straight and flat, through expansive open green-ness, with the odd s-bend or sheep thrown in to keep things interesting. As we approached Durness the road widened again and the markings re-appeared, and we found a decent-looking pub to chill out in called the Sango Sands Oasis. We had a couple of drinks (non-alcohol obviously) and played a couple of games of pool. It was a nice relaxing change from the adrenaline-fueled antics which had preceded it.
Somehow Ed and I ended up back at the cars before Adam and Frank, and we laughed heartily to each other over the walkie-talkies as it started raining hard, filling the back of the MX5 up like a paddling pool. The gentlemanly thing to do would have been to grab the tarp out and cover it up, but unfortunately there weren’t any gentlemen around. A couple of minutes later, possibly after hearing the laughter, the 2 stragglers came dashing through the car-park looking slightly moist, and jumped into the (also moist) 2 seater. An emergency rear window substitute was sharply fabricated out of the tarp and a load of gaffa tape, how long this would last is anybody’s guess. Except mine, as I was there, and therefore know for a fact that it wasn’t very long at all.
We set off and began retracing our steps down the A838, somewhat slower than on the way up due, in part, to the slippery surface, but also as the sheep population had inexplicably increased ten-fold. The rain eased off as we went past the junction to Lairg from earlier, which signalled the start of the A894. This was nice smooth full width “proper” road which hugged the coastline down to Unapool, through yet more stunning scenery, as per usual. We dispatched with this fairly rapidly and made an unscheduled stop by a stream shortly before Inchnadamph and the A837. The rain had disappeared for a moment and for some reason we came over all Bear Grylls, scaling a rocky mountainside in order to fully admire the surrounding landscape, the road, and the three little cars that had brought us here. For a short while, as we all perched precariously on nature’s sofa, nobody said a word, all silently drinking in the marvel of the moment.
The calm serenity was dealt a swift kick in the chops when Frank climbed back down into his car, exited the layby with a gravelly burnout, and hooned off up the road in a cacophony of exhaust bark and supercharger wail. I filmed it, grinning. He span around just out of sight and returned in a similar manner, arriving back in the layby looking extremely pleased with himself.
A short stint on the A837 took us to the A835, both genuinely sublime roads by the way, which we followed down to Ullapool and a much needed fuel stop. Again I was the only one who managed to leave his fuel reserve untouched, but it was a pretty close call, I think the Clio’s tank was only a couple of litres from fumes. Whilst planning I was highly doubtful that this Gleaner station would have super unleaded, but petrol supplies of any sort in this area of Scotland were sparse, so we had to take a chance. Happily it turned out that this small 8 pump services did indeed have a nozzle of 97RON, they must have known we were coming.
We stayed on the A835 for a further 15 minutes or so out of Ullapool, during which Ed had a comedic game of “never-lift” with some absolute legend in a black Caddy van. It pains me to say it but I honestly don’t think the little 1.6 litre Lupo had enough beans in the tank to keep up! We admitted a gracious collective defeat and hung a right, stopping in a small gravel area overlooking the Corrieshalloch Gorge Nature Reserve. Here we created our proposal for the next Aquafresh advert, remember – you saw it here first.
It was now knocking on the door of 6pm, bellies were rumbling and eyelids were getting heavier, yet we were still 45 miles away from the evening’s… err… “entertainment”. It was time to put pedal to the metal for the day’s final stint – the A832. Frank flat-out hated this road; it was rough, twisty and very bumpy. His stiff coilover suspension was throwing him around like an ice cube in a barman’s cocktail shaker, and his lack of ride height meant regular and brutal chassis-to-ground interfacing. However, as much as he loathed it, Ed and I absolutely loved it. Our comparatively compliant mechanicals meant we could really attack the road, skipping over the potholes and crests and clinging onto the apexes. Don’t get me wrong, it still wasn’t at all comfortable, but it was utterly exhilarating. I hung onto Ed’s taillights for a while, replicating his every move and getting some fantastic GoPro footage. Eventually he ushered me past and tried to return the favour. It was a gallant effort but he gradually got smaller and smaller, and ultimately disappeared from my rear view mirror altogether.
I backed off as we approached Gairloch letting him, and eventually the MX5 with its dejected and broken occupants, catch up. We drove past a friendly looking B&B on the right hand side; we weren’t staying there. We turned off the main road and drove past a posh looking hotel on the left hand side; we weren’t staying there. We continued down towards the seafront, past another hotel and a quaint little holiday cottage; we weren’t staying in either of them. We hooked a right into Gairloch Holiday Park, which presented some half-decent static caravan’s either side of the entrance… guess what? We weren’t staying in any of them either. In fact we would really struggle to see exactly where we would be staying that night, as we hadn’t erected them yet. Yes, having failed to find anywhere on the upper west coast of Scotland with spare rooms on this particular Saturday (at least anywhere not requiring a remortgage to pay for), Frank had suggested the brilliant idea of camping. Idiotically the rest of us had agreed. It is worth mentioning at this point that it was blowing an actual gale. The brilliant idea was now looking rather less than brilliant, to put it mildly. It was also rapidly getting dark, and we were informed by the park attendant that the food in the local pub would stop being served very shortly. The less than brilliant idea was now demoted to the worst fucking idea anyone has ever had ever in the world ever.
We did our best to put the tents up in some-kind of structurally sound manner, using the cars as windblocks, and weighted them down inside with as much stuff as possible to stop them blowing away. Some of us were more successful than others. Mine was approximately adequate (turns out all those years of cub scouts weren’t a total waste of time). Ed’s tent bag displayed a lovely looking igloo shaped dwelling whereas right now, in real life, it looked as if someone had taken an axe to the middle of it, creating an unpleasant M shape. Nobody was quite sure what Franks was supposed to look like, but it probably wasn’t a 12 inch tall green and orange limpet. Even that was better than Adam’s tent though. I had offered him a spare one I had kicking around in the downstairs cupboard, but on closer inspection it turned out to have a catastrophic lack of poles. Therefore Adam’s tent didn’t exist, and to pay for my oversight I would have to give up 50% of mine. I didn’t take any photos of our amateur-hour campsite as I didn’t think it was worth the risk of dropping the camera, and it ending up in a tree several miles away. In any case, unless we wanted to catch our own dinner out in the Atlantic, we had to get a wriggle on.
We dashed to the pub and, with immense relief, they agreed to serve us. Several beers were consumed alongside our food, in an attempt to distract from the idea of spending the night in our wind-battered glorified carrier bags. We put it off for as long as possible, and tried unsuccessfully to sweet-talk the pubs staff into letting us kip on their floor. Finally the need for some shut-eye forced us to give in, and we headed back outside where more-or-less everything was at a 45 degree angle to normal.
Sleeping may be a challenge…
Wreckless Abandon 
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