The Not NC500 Scotland Trip

[JohnStewart]

Unless you have a specific reason to head through to Invermoriston (maybe lunch in Fort Augustus?), I would take a left at Invergarry and head up the A87, as that section of the A82 can be quite busy with few overtaking opportunities.

If you find you have made decent progress and have a few more hours to spare, then it's also worth heading up the A835 to Ledmore and back down to Bonar Bridge.

 

[mattyg]

Thanks Guys

My only concern is with the Fuel issue up there. Any reason to worry...

 

[Housey]

Thanks Guys

My only concern is with the Fuel issue up there. Any reason to worry...

Just keep your sat nav ready to locate them and appreciate you won’t always get branded or high octane fuel. We pull 15 + super cars into some little station in the middle of nowhere and people were coming over to watch and take pictures

 

[V_R]

As someone who really wants to do the NC500, that route of yours looks very interesting indeed! Not a bad bunch of cars either!

 

[mattyg]

Just got back home.. Had a blast. Stunning part of the country. Time restraints meant we couldn't do the whole trip we wanted. But that just means we HAVE to go back.
We were using it as part of the run in schedule for the new car. that we collected on friday, Running in service due at 1200 miles.. only 348 left to do now.

 

[magicroundabout]

Spoiler: SNIP

A few weeks ago I was lucky to join a group of good friends together with a few new acquaintances on a road trip into Scotland. My friends and I had been bouncing it around for some time and when our Spa/Nurburgring trip became impossible we decided to plan a Scotland trip instead.

I have done the full NC500 route before and though this is a fantastic trip to do it doesn't really suit supercars. In some places it is very tight and very bumpy and once you get away from the west coast it becomes a bit average for large swathes of the route.

We wanted something that brought the best driving roads into focus and a friend had done something last year and swore by it. We took his route, tweaked it a bit and in doing so I think came up with the best possible driving this country offers and the equal of anywhere I'd argue.

Day 1

195 miles - 4 1/2 hours with lunch around half way


Day 2

231 miles - 5 hours with lunch of course


Day 3

222 miles - 5 Hours and I seem to recall....lunch


We used an App designed for Tesla but the advantage of that App and important for proper routing is it does not recalculate if you take a wrong turn, so you don't miss anything. We did add a couple of additions to this route to take in some additional local knowledge and that was worth it too as it provided some epic views and shots for photos. I can totally recommend this journey and promise you far far better driving routes and some equal vistas to the standard NC500 route.

More to come...

@Housey just stumbling across this old thread.
Have recently started to look at the NC500 and have now seen your route and wanted to know a bit more (if you can remember).

Where did you start. Stay etc. Also programming into Waze/Apple Maps etc.
Myself and the GF when we get our new cars in the summer would love to do something like this across Scotland but maybe expand it further than the 3 days. Are there additional routes you'd recommend etc

 

[Housey]

We started from St Andrews, assembling the cars there the night before we headed off. Most were parked in the public car park on the sea front overnight, we had security to keep an eye on them overnight. A few more joined the following morning and off we went.

We used an app called A Better Route Planner (ABRP) and one of the guys with us programmed the route in and shared it with us, don’t ask me how. You need something with fixed routing else you will lose the route as your sat nav will reroute typically.

Hotels wise we went for convenience over poshness and though 3 of the drivers bought their better halves so went the posh route they ended up coming to our hotels for dinner as that was where the banter was.

Format was drive morning to a lunch, drive afternoon to a hotel with the odd stop when the visitors demanded it or the bladder.

 

[magicroundabout]

Sounds like a good time. Would you know of additional routes to possibly add on? To stretch it maybe 5 days (7days total).

I'll take a look at that App. Ah I've noticed it's designed for electric vehicles.
I'll search for an alternative which can create a fixed route

 

[magicroundabout]

@Housey So looking through your maps I have (hopefully) come up with something similar and added a bit extra.

Having done it before is their anything I'm missing.

We're going to extend it to a week. 2 days driving to and from Scotland and 2 days at the end in Edinburgh.

Spoiler: Day 1

Spoiler: Day 2

Spoiler: Day 3

Spoiler: Day 4

 

[DRZ]

It'd be a real shame to get all the way to Kyle of Lochalsh and not cross the bridge to Skye and carry on enjoying the A87 all the way to Portree (or beyond!).

My route took us from a starting point at Loch Lomond up via Glen Etive, Glencoe and a mrs-friendly detour to the Glenfinnian Viaduct to Portree on Skye, then from Skye we went across up to Nairn before heading South through the Cairngorms via Grantown-on-Spey and Balmoral which is a pretty magical drive tbh. We stayed in Pitlochry before heading down to Edinburgh and then off home.

I've done that Edi to Aberdeen drive a few times for work, I'd not choose to do that over the trip down through the Cairngorms, especially if you're in a fun car or enjoy driving. There's a dozen or so speed cameras on the Dundee to Aberdeen A92 stretch.

 

[magicroundabout]

It'd be a real shame to get all the way to Kyle of Lochalsh and not cross the bridge to Skye and carry on enjoying the A87 all the way to Portree (or beyond!).

My route took us from a starting point at Loch Lomond up via Glen Etive, Glencoe and a mrs-friendly detour to the Glenfinnian Viaduct to Portree on Skye, then from Skye we went across up to Nairn before heading South through the Cairngorms via Grantown-on-Spey and Balmoral which is a pretty magical drive tbh. We stayed in Pitlochry before heading down to Edinburgh and then off home.

I've done that Edi to Aberdeen drive a few times for work, I'd not choose to do that over the trip down through the Cairngorms, especially if you're in a fun car or enjoy driving. There's a dozen or so speed cameras on the Dundee to Aberdeen A92 stretch.

appreciate the info.

I was looking at carrying on from Kyle upto Uig but didn't think you could go any further from there. The road look pretty spectacular.

Yes we'll be in a fun car. If it's full of cameras maybe we'll avoid the Aberdeen route.

 

[Pen66]

It'd be a real shame to get all the way to Kyle of Lochalsh and not cross the bridge to Skye and carry on enjoying the A87 all the way to Portree (or beyond!).

My route took us from a starting point at Loch Lomond up via Glen Etive, Glencoe and a mrs-friendly detour to the Glenfinnian Viaduct to Portree on Skye, then from Skye we went across up to Nairn before heading South through the Cairngorms via Grantown-on-Spey and Balmoral which is a pretty magical drive tbh. We stayed in Pitlochry before heading down to Edinburgh and then off home.

I've done that Edi to Aberdeen drive a few times for work, I'd not choose to do that over the trip down through the Cairngorms, especially if you're in a fun car or enjoy driving. There's a dozen or so speed cameras on the Dundee to Aberdeen A92 stretch.

Agreed, I'd be looking at driving through the Cairngorms via the A939/A93 as it's a much better drive than the Aberdeen to Dundee route which is just a dual with average speed cameras for most of it.

I'd also recommend not bothering with Inverness to Fraserburgh route as there's not much in the area and the roads aren't particularly interesting, unless you have reasons for going there. The time would be better spent on other roads/locations.

 

[magicroundabout]

Agreed, I'd be looking at driving through the Cairngorms via the A939/A93 as it's a much better drive than the Aberdeen to Dundee route which is just a dual with average speed cameras for most of it.

I'd also recommend not bothering with Inverness to Fraserburgh route as there's not much in the area and the roads aren't particularly interesting, unless you have reasons for going there. The time would be better spent on other roads/locations.

something like this? But maybe split into x 2 journeys?
Would driving round the Isle of Skye be worth it?

 

[DRZ]

Yes, that's a good route. If you do want to break it up, I really do recommend Pitlochry as a place to stop - there's several nice hotels in the area and is about the right sort of distance for whatever you might reasonably want to do the next day.

IMO, Skye is more or less a must-see sort of place.

Spoiler

 

[magicroundabout]

Yes, that's a good route. If you do want to break it up, I really do recommend Pitlochry as a place to stop - there's several nice hotels in the area and is about the right sort of distance for whatever you might reasonably want to do the next day.

IMO, Skye is more or less a must-see sort of place.

Spoiler

Perfect thank you. Once the cars arrive we can’t wait to do this.

What a great picture too

 

[visibleman]

Last time i did a Scotland trip, we did an anticlockwise route from Edinburgh, up to Inverness then across to Isle of Skye and back down to Glasgow (click to expand) -

7 days total (2 up and down, 5 on the route) and we kept it to 100-150 mile days as we all wanted to explore destinations and do plenty of pit stops along the way for touristy stuff like distilleries (drivers didn't drink obviously), Mallaig train and bridge (fyi, carpark there gets rammed) etc.
Hopefully next trip, i would like to tact on Aberdeen, push it further north on the A9 and around the A838 for the NC500 feel/route, add a day around Loch Fyne and perhaps add Isle of Mull.

Camera-wise, didn't spot anything other than in and around Edinburgh and Glasgow and the locals didn't seem particularly worried - most of them tonk along (a lot more than the NSL) on what we would deem sketchy roads, even the local supermarket delivery vans would hurl themselves down the B852.

One place i would happily miss is Fort William; i thought it was a bit of a dive (was during the start of summer) and there's places that are a lot, lot nicer north and south of it.

It'd be a real shame to get all the way to Kyle of Lochalsh and not cross the bridge to Skye and carry on enjoying the A87 all the way to Portree (or beyond!).

Yup i agree as there is some great scenery even if you do get stuck behind caravans and campervans. Similarly there are some absolutely superb roads (few sketchy ones too) and scenery through the Cairngorms and some great places to stay, would highly recommend that as well.

 

[mattyg]

Last time i did a Scotland trip, we did an anticlockwise route from Edinburgh, up to Inverness then across to Isle of Skye and back down to Glasgow (click to expand) -

7 days total (2 up and down, 5 on the route) and we kept it to 100-150 mile days as we all wanted to explore destinations and do plenty of pit stops along the way for touristy stuff like distilleries (drivers didn't drink obviously), Mallaig train and bridge (fyi, carpark there gets rammed) etc.
Hopefully next trip, i would like to tact on Aberdeen, push it further north on the A9 and around the A838 for the NC500 feel/route, add a day around Loch Fyne and perhaps add Isle of Mull.

Camera-wise, didn't spot anything other than in and around Edinburgh and Glasgow and the locals didn't seem particularly worried - most of them tonk along (a lot more than the NSL) on what we would deem sketchy roads, even the local supermarket delivery vans would hurl themselves down the B852.

One place i would happily miss is Fort William; i thought it was a bit of a dive (was during the start of summer) and there's places that are a lot, lot nicer north and south of it.


Yup i agree as there is some great scenery even if you do get stuck behind caravans and campervans. Similarly there are some absolutely superb roads (few sketchy ones too) and scenery through the Cairngorms and some great places to stay, would highly recommend that as well.

Bought my M5C from Glasgow. Did pretty much that route to help get the running in mileage done. Some really nice roads and a few single track.....Got stuck behind an ASDA van for what felt like an hour

 

[DRZ]

Yup i agree as there is some great scenery even if you do get stuck behind caravans and campervans.

I suppose it depends on what you're in and if you get lucky with the timing of oncoming traffic but I have never really had too much of an issue with overtaking things up there. Multi-car overtakes are very often completely 'on' with a bit of forward visibility and good planning.

 

[magicroundabout]

We'll be going up in my new A45s once it gets built/delivered in June. Aiming to do this trip in Aug. Should hopefully help with the running in with the drive up and some runs through Scotland.

It would be good to join a group of people to do the trip in convoy. Just knowing which car group to join etc

 

[-Ad-]

We'll be going up in my new A45s once it gets built/delivered in June. Aiming to do this trip in Aug. Should hopefully help with the running in with the drive up and some runs through Scotland.

It would be good to join a group of people to do the trip in convoy. Just knowing which car group to join etc

I'd advise you don't do a silly large convoy, both for your enjoyment and for the sake of everyone else driving in the NW Scotland area.

Some of the "must do roads" further North or hugging the coastline are not meant for large groups of cars nose to tail with the passing places being big enough for only a few cars.

Also, be wary as the roads up there can be unpredictable in terms of their state of repair.

I'd be doing the trip at short notice in the off season, when you can find a decent pocket of good weather. It's more beautiful, the roads will be empty and you won't have to deal with midges.