North Coast 500: Durness to Dunrobin Castle

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Durness

   Durness is where the road runs out of Britain and starts to feel like the edge of something. It lies on the north coast of Sutherland, a long, thin scatter of crofts around a wide sandy bay, with the Kyle of Durness and its pale beaches below and the flat-topped hills of the interior behind. The A838 arrives from the south by way of Loch Eriboll, a deep sea loch where warships sheltered in the Second World War, and the bare moorland there gives you a sense of how empty this corner is.

   Read the complete Durness write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Durness is where the day begins. Next is John o Groats.

2. 2. John o Groats

   Nothing about John o' Groats is subtle. It sits at the north-eastern tip of mainland Britain, in the flat, wind-scoured county of Caithness, and the whole point of arriving is to stand at the signpost, which tells you that Land's End is about 874 miles away by road. People get here on bicycles, on foot, on motorbikes, in vintage tractors, and almost all of them have a photograph taken by the same sign. The nearest towns are Wick, twenty-three kilometres south, and Thurso, twenty-seven kilometres west, and both have fuel, supermarkets and places to eat, while the village itself has a harbour, a few shops and cafés and a very full car park in summer.

   Read the complete John o Groats write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   John o Groats comes up about 146 km into the recorded legs. Next is Dunrobin Castle.

3. 3. Dunrobin Castle

   Dunrobin Castle stands on the shore of the Moray Firth just north of Golspie, and it is one of the most surprising buildings in Scotland, a fairy-tale pile of turrets and pinnacles that looks more like a French château than a Highland fortress. The seat of the Earls and later Dukes of Sutherland, it began as a medieval keep and was rebuilt in the 1840s in the Scottish baronial style by Sir Charles Barry, the architect of the Houses of Parliament. There are around 189 rooms, formal gardens that descend toward the sea, and a falconry display in summer. The castle even has its own railway halt, though trains stop there only occasionally.

   Read the complete Dunrobin Castle write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   The route ends here after 255 km.