After a few days in Thurso end exploring a few castles and 'end of the world' kind of places, we traveled on to Dornoch. We found some charming places and especially this one castle stole my heart - it is one of the most memorable places I've ever visited!
Dornoch
In Dornoch we decided to stay in a castle hotel - we picked the place since their Whisky Bar was supposed to be the best of Europe, and I still needed to have my first flight of whisky ever! (Spoiler alert: it took me hours to complete three tasters of whiskey and I felt really tipsy.)
Looking back on Dornoch I almost exclusively see I took pictures of whisky and food and chocolate, and since I'm not going to pretend food photography is 'my thing' I'm going to skip a bit of my story towards... ending the North-Coast 500!
[Last thoughts on the North-Coast 500: lighthouses and rugged coast everywhere]
Passing Inverness and onto the East of Scotland
Before we started our travels we decided we would take the time we needed for completing the North-Coast 500. No pressure, just see which places we liked and which places we wanted to pass a bit quicker.
In the end we spent 18 days on the North-Coast 500. A lot of days to complete a drive of only 500 miles! But as I wrote before: the detours alone will add up your total mileage, and we like 'slow travel', ie spending more time than strictly needed in a place in order to see as much of it as possible.
But, in the end we were at the end of our 500 miles. But we also had 10 more days left until our flight back from Glasgow.
[Last thoughts on the North-Coast 500: I've never seen so much heather in my life]
Completion in Inverness
From locals we heard good things about Cairngorms National Park and picked this as our goal for the last 10 days. But not before we drove past Inverness, the starting and endpoint of the North-Coast 500, which left us feeling fulfilled: we did it!
Just outside of Inverness we decided to take a moment to realize what the trip had been thus far by visiting a lovely cheese place where we could taste all kinds of local and raw cheeses and looking back on our adventures of the North-Coast 50.
[Last thoughts on the North-Coast 500: not completely alone, but pretty damn deserted]
OTHER STORIES ON THE NORTH-COAST 500
- Put this on your bucket list: Driving the North-Coast 500
- The North-Coast 500: from Inverness to Lochcarron via Applecross [First leg]
- The North-Coast 500: a detour to the Isle of Skye
- The North-Coast 500: from Lochcarron to Rhiconich [Second leg]
- The North-Coast 500: A magical stop at Inverewe Gardens
- The North-Coast 500: from Rhiconich to Thurso [Third leg]
All photography on steemit.com/@soyrosa is created and edited by me, Rosanne Dubbeld, 2005-2018. Contact me if you want to discuss licensing or collaborations on creative projects :-)
Return from The North-Coast 500: from Thurso to Dornoch and completing the 500 miles [Fourth leg] to Rosanne's Web3 Blog
