Day 13! NC500 baby! This morning we were up and at it early doors as we are planning to hit John O Groats today! The most northerly point and thus completing our Lands End to John O Groats tour (although thankfully our honeymoon isn’t quite over yet)!
The sun was shining, we again had some chores to complete (empty toilet/waste) and make sure we had a cup of tea to accompany us on the hour and half drive to the most northerly point of the UK!
The NC500 north
It was a tough drive in places, the road as a bit rough and ragged but it was the hills that got us a bit! Definitely not the worse drive of the honeymoon, but tricky in its own way!
It must be said that it was absolutely worth it for 2 reasons! Reason 1: the views were insane! It was rolling hills, fields upon fields upon fields all of differing colours, we saw cows, highland cows, sheep, ponies, more sheep and believe it or not; alpacas!
But best of all, the sea! The sun was dancing off the sea the whole way! At times the clouds were almost touching the sea and we were still driving through it, it felt beautifully endless. I knew the views were going to be good, but my brain had seriously underestimated just how good – definitely the best we had seen so far and we could both enjoy the majority of it!
We made it to John O Groats
Reason 2: we made it John O Groats baby!!! We had officially completed the Lands End to John O Groats journey and boy it felt good! Supposedly 874 miles but we have so far managed to add on perhaps an additional 500 miles to that! We did it our way!
We did it the adventure, thrill seeking, needing to see every country kind of way and I wouldn’t have changed it for the world! I couldn’t possibly have dreamt of doing it any other way, there were ups, there were downs and there were lessons learnt but it’s been bloody awesome and no one can take it away from us!
I have to commend Michael, our captain, yet again (I don’t normally praise him this much in real life) driving to Lands End to John O Groats in a car is a challenge, driving it in a motorhome is exhausting but you’ve done it and I take my hat off to you!
The views on the way to John O Groats were spectacular, but the ones at John O Groats were even better as they were filled with pride and a sense of achievement! We enjoyed the feeling and the view before mooching round the shops and picking up a park and herb sausage roll which was very good!
We spent about an hour and a half at the most northerly point before we headed back down to our campsite in Brora, which was another hour and a half drive.
Beach time in Brora
When we had parked up we felt like we needed to stretch our legs and find out what Brora had to offer, so we went for an explore and to our surprise, we came across a beach!
We walked for over an hour on the beach, letting the dog go a bit mental (he loves the beach!) and enjoying the fresh sea breeze air! We dipped our toes in expecting to immediately turn to ice, but it wasn’t cold! It was surprisingly pleasant!
There were people surfing, others walking their dogs, it was perfect! I even collected a couple of shells like a little kid!
After Bentley had had a couple of bouts of “zoomies” we came off the beach and headed into the town to explore the shops. We found some quaint local shops that sold a lot of handmade items which were really sweet, I love nosing around in those kinds of shops and then we had some ice cream!
We both had three different scoops, Michael went for Malteaser, Passionfruit and Halkirk Tablet and I chose Honeycomb, Toffee Fudge and Halkirk Fudge. 3 scoops was perhaps too much for me and the Halkirk fudge was very sweet! We even got Bentley his own scoop of vanilla which he devoured in a minute!
We then headed back to the van and as we were staying here for 2 nights and Michael gets a day off of driving we decided to crack open a bottle of bubbly because we bloody deserve it! We were pretty chuffed with this decision, but Bentley was definitely judging us!
Stick around as we continue our adventure heading south! ✌🏼