Northern exposure
Scotland isn’t so much a country that you drive through, it’s largely driven over. There are that many hills, Munros, mountains and peaks, that your first question when choosing a car for any kind of road trip north of the border should simply be: ‘Will it get me there?’
Scottish driving, and on this particular adventure, Scottish driving in the winter, needs something reliable, sturdy, practical. Like a good pair of walking boots, rather than shiny dress shoes. For us there was only one car that could tick all those boxes for our January jaunt around Scotland’s North Coast 500, and that was a Land Rover Defender.
Scotland’s answer to Route 66, as the North Coast 500 is commonly referred to, is nothing like the iconic American highway. It’s not linear, for a start: there is no A to B. Technically you can begin your journey on any part of the 516-mile loop, but most people, mainly for practical reasons, choose to start in Inverness. Then there is the decision as to whether to go left or right, clockwise or anti-clockwise. My preference would
