Day 6: Scourie to Durness 35 miles Total 286 miles
I enjoyed an early morning walk down to the jetty with the dogs, and discovered that we had a Wi-Fi signal from a router in the houses beside the road! I was able to post a Facebook update from here. The other joy was being watched by a robin down by the jetty.
When we arrived the day before we had spied a little sandy beach from the campsite. We followed a path towards it, but it was really too rough and wet, so we gave up. This morning we drove down to the beach as we were leaving Scourie in glorious sunshine. The dogs enjoyed the run on the sand; Mary enjoyed stalking her favourite shore birds, ringed plovers; and I enjoyed taking photographs. A lovely hour or so.
Then it was off, still heading north towards Durness. With not a long drive before us we had plenty time to make a detour to Kinlochbervie and were surprised to see the size of the fish market and the signs of industrial style fishing here in such a remote area. We stopped for lunch in the old School at Inshegra, and I was delighted with the little burn and rowan tree beside where we parked.
As we approached the north coast the countryside changed quite a bit. We drove down a broad smooth valley with obvious signs of sheep farming. Every so often there would be an old tyre with a painted warning to watch out for lambs. Quite different to the craggy mountainous countryside we had encountered much of the way from Inverness.
Sango Bay campsite was a joy – big and not at all claustrophobic. We found ourselves a cliff-top pitch and admired the sandy beach below, with beautiful blue sea; we could even make out two Orkney Isalnds on the horizon.
Then came the excitement as we spotted dolphins in the bay. They were too far away to photograph well, but it was a joy to watch them in the clear blue water.
In the evening we managed a walk on the sand, even though Poppy took off with a Collie and we found her waiting for us at the top of the cliff!
In the night the rain came and the gales blew. I had left my trainers under the van; the sideways rain filled them with water.
The wind blew even harder and the rain battered the van, and we shook and shook and shook. Quite frightening on the cliff top.
The are more pictures of our road trip along the NC 500 on my Flickr page.