If you’ve seen my post about our adventures around Inverness, or you’ve been following along on Instagram, you’ll be expecting this post. I’m slowly recapping our visit to north-west Scotland on the NC500 in October this year. 

This is an attempt at a quick-fire round up of the various places we visited between Ullapool and Smoo Cave on the North Coast 500. We visited in October, and a lot of things were closed for the season, including all boat trips, so bear in mind this is a far from complete list! Google reckons you can make this journey in two hours if you don’t stop, but I would say that is highly ambitious given that a lot of the journey is on single track roads. Also, realistically, you’re going to want to stop – it’s beautiful! 

Ullapool

A charming fishing town/village with a picturesque bay and working harbour. As a bigger town (comparatively speaking), there are some tourist shops here, as well as a Tesco. To give you an idea of how rural the area is, this was our closest supermarket, only 1.5 hours from Kinlochbervie, where we stayed! 

I’d highly recommend The Seafood Shack for fresh tasty fishy street food, and Ullapool Bookshop for the friendly staff and excellent choice. 

The Bone Caves and Allt nan Uamh Waterfall

We didn’t make it as far as the Bone Caves (4 miles one way), but the views I’ve seen look incredible. Just a short walk from the car park you can see Allt nan Uamh waterfall, which we did make it to.

Katie’s written a really useful blog post about visiting the Bone Caves, complete with detailed route.

Ardvreck Castle, Calda House and Loch Assynt

A ruined fifteenth century castle and a dangerously unsound ruined seventeenth century manor house sitting on the shores of a picturesque loch? Yes please! Depending on water levels, you might be lucky enough to get across to the little island that Ardvreck Castle sits on, but it’s also very nice seen from the shore.

At this point the NC500 route divides – there’s an alternative route if you’re in a motorhome or wouldn’t be confident reversing your vehicle several hundred yards on a narrow single-track road. The alternative route is a more direct way to get to the north, and still very beautiful. 

I think you could take the non-alternative route to Lochinver if you’re interested in a visit (I’m sure we saw a coach there), but beyond that I’m not sure. The B869 is very narrow in places with a lot of sharp turns. If you get stuck, everyone else trying to get along that road is also going to get stuck with you, so do your research in advance. 

Lochinver

Lochinver is another town with quite a bit on offer for tourists. Alongside a lovely bay and some charming shops, there’s also a Highland Stoneware shop and workshop. This is free to visit and a great opportunity to watch people hand-painting pottery. I tend to overestimate my crafting abilities, but even I know I don’t have anything like the skill for this. There are also some fun pottery sculptures around the car park.

Clachtoll

Clachtoll has a beach and a small geological display in the car park. Beside this, it seems to be mainly campsite. We stopped here for some really tasty toasties and coffee from Flossies. I was very pleasantly surprised that everywhere I tried was able to offer me oat milk instead of cow milk. Clachtoll also had some very cute coos! 

Rock Stop Café

When the NC500 gets back together again, you’ll come to the Rock Stop Café and Exhibition Centre, which is the visitor centre for the North West Highlands Unesco Global Geopark. Not for the first time this holiday, I felt like I’d been transported back to the 1990s, but the geology exhibition was interesting, and I enjoyed the retro vibes. 

Kylesku

We wanted to head to Kylesku for a boat trip, but unfortunately they had shut up shop for the season the week before we arrived. We took the opportunity to look in the gift shop, and though the Kylesku Hotel looked like a lovely place to stay.

If you want to take pictures of Kylesku Bridge, the best place to stop is the car park just to the north. 

Assynt Viewpoint

Further up the hill, this viewpoint on the left hand side offers incredibly far reaching views.

Kinlochbervie

We’ll be visiting Kinlochbervie in another post – it’s where we stayed and there are some glorious beaches that deserve the limelight in a post of their own. 

Balnakiel

Balnakiel beach is a long, beautiful sandy beach, with the ruined Balnakiel church sitting at one end. Balnakiel Craft Village was another place that brought back a lot of nostalgia for childhood summer holidays. The highlight of the craft village for me was a trip to Cocoa Mountain, where I enjoyed a rare moment of feeling warm with a very tasty hot chocolate inside me. 

Smoo Cave

Our most northerly stop on the NC500! We had hoped to do a boat trip in Smoo Cave. Because it’s an active cave fed from a stream, even a small amount of rain can cause flooding, so tours are not always running. When we got there, we decided to walk down to the cave and see what was what, and it turns out you can still explore the first cave, and have a look in the second cave where the boat would go from. Having been blasted by water in the second cave in one of the most intense experiences of my life, I can see why the tours weren’t running that day. Somewhat surprisingly, I loved it and I would highly recommend a visit, even if the tours aren’t on. 

I hope this helps to provide you with some ideas for places to stop along your NC500 roadtrip!