NORTH COAST 500...PLUS!

You can’t beat a good road trip with your mates or your mistress, but finding the time, money and excuses needed often makes the difference between packing up your underpants, or sitting in a pair on your sofa as you binge-watch TV and poke pizza down your gullet. For three years now one route has whetted our appetites for adventure quite like no other, with the promise of mountains, endless haggis and speed camera-free roads dangling like a juicy, Nutella-coated carrot. I’m talking about the North Coast 500 that typically starts and ends in Inverness, having navigated one’s way around the northern coastline of Scotland in either a clockwise or anti-clockwise persuasion. See, here’s the thing: as well- known and adored as this iconic route might be, the hard and fast rules to tackling it make muddy puddles seem comparatively clear. It proved so confusing during our initial lager-fuelled planning meeting that we pied off most of the formalities, aiming mainly to hug the coast as and when was possible, stop at as many distilleries along the way and ride on the left for most of the time. The rest we’d figure out once our wheels got rolling on our five-day extravaganza, which we were set to complete on three whopping sports tourers. Knowing how big Boothy’s belly is, we thought it best he opted for a lard-arse lugging S 1000 XR to power him around. Carl’s pick of a 1290 Gt was chosen purely on the basis of fun over function, while being the old man of this tribe I befittingly found myself behind the ’bars of Kawasaki’s Ninja 1000 SX. Other than each having two wheels and an engine, the only other commonality between our steeds was the fitment of Dunlop’s new Mutant tyres, that looked like racing wets and felt stickier than a nightclub’s dance floor.

Before we knew it our day of departure was upon us, and the other thing that caught us by surprise was Boothy’s sat nav telling us it was an eight-hour ride to Inverness. It was two in the afternoon