North Coast 500: Ullapool to John o Groats

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Ullapool

   Ullapool is a white-painted fishing village laid out on a grid, which in the Highlands is as unusual as a roundabout. The British Fisheries Society planned it in 1788 as a base for herring boats on the shore of Loch Broom, and the long straight streets facing the water reflect that planning. Today about fifteen hundred people live here, the harbour is busy with creel boats and the ferry to Stornoway on Lewis, and in summer the quay fills with visitors eating chips from paper and looking out to the hills.

   Read the complete Ullapool write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Ullapool is where the day begins. Next is Durness.

2. 2. 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 comes up about 109 km into the recorded legs. Next is John o Groats.

3. 3. 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

   The route ends here after 255 km.