In-camera pano shot on the X100V with the camera in the portrait orientation.
PHOTOGRAPHY AND TEXT BY DEREK CLARK
The road trip. It fires up a romantic notion in most of us; fuelled by everything from car commercials, old films of Route 66, and even childhood holidays from a time before every trip had to begin with a plane ticket. I started to get the urge for a road trip when I bought my fourth Land Rover, just a couple of months before COVID 19 appeared on the scene. This was obviously put on hold for the past 18 months, but with a reluctance to sit on a plane for multiple hours, the road trip became the best option. Not only that, after the various lockdowns during the pandemic, the urge to just hit the road and be free was pretty overwhelming.
The North Coast 500 is one of the worlds most beautiful and epic road trips. Starting and ending in Scotland’s most northerly city of Inverness. The choice of going clockwise or anti-clockwise is up to the driver, but we opted for the latter, travelling up the east coast fairly quickly, then slowing down to take in the epic rugged landscape along the extreme north coast and then back down the west coast. We camped, we stayed in hotels and we stayed in hostels. Wild camping is legal in Scotland and usually better than any campsite when it comes to pitching the tent in a great spot.
For a full week, I had no urge to pick up my phone and look at any of the garbage it’s connected to. The battery went flat and I couldn’t have cared less. I took an iPad and didn’t use it once. I took my kindle but didn’t read a single page. There was nothing but driving, photography, setting up camp, cooking and sleeping. It was just what I needed and just what I’ve been craving ever since.
The highlight of the North Coast 500 is the road leading to a remote village called Applecross. The road is called Bealach Na Ba and as far as I know is the highest road in the UK. A sign at the start of the road alerts drivers that it’s not suitable for large vehicles, caravans, motorhomes, or learner drivers. It has gradients of 1 in 5 and has hairpin bends. It doesn’t mention the vertical drops if you veer off the road, but you soon find that out.
We clocked up over a thousand miles on our 500-mile road trip, including the drive to Inverness and back. But we’re already planning our next road trip, but first, we need to get a roof rack to give us more space inside.
