So despite a good sleep I woke up at 5am (usual for me) to a rather wet tent! The rain had battered down most of the night and with the wind assisting, the storm had successfully managed to form several pockets of water above me on the inner layer of the tent ready to fall on me as soon as I moved!
Stealth mode this time was not my speciality therefore I ended up soaked! Might have woken my mum at this point in the tent next door by muttering a few bad words!
Waterproofs on, tents thrown into dry bags and breakfast scoffed on the go, we said our goodbyes to the beautiful beach and made tracks heading along to Tongue to take a more main road Southbound, stopping to take in a few sights along the way.
Reaching the Black Isle we popped in to Skiach services for lunch before arriving in Rosemarkie for our wee wander up Fairy Glen.
The waterfalls here were super, again despite much rain.
Next stop (and final stop of our trip): Chanonry Point for some dolphin spotting.
Upon arrival I had googled the tide times as seemingly the dolphins are most active jumping out of the water roughly one hour after low tide… this would have been at 10am… it was now well into the afternoon and the next low tide was later this evening.
We wandered round the top of the point, watching eagerly for the dolphins but it looked like this was back on our bucket lists for another day.
Back in the car we headed for home, the traffic moved freely the whole journey and the rain was pretty constant. It wasn’t until we reached home (765 miles all in) that the rain cleared.
Although we didn’t strictly follow or even set out to do the NC500, it was a thoroughly enjoyable road trip. I can see why the NC500 has become so popular.
My favourite places in the North West have to be Achmelvich Beach, Sango Bay and The Wailing Widow Waterfalls.
Will definitely head back up there again.
Snuz's Adventures 