2 Fatties in a Fiat 500 - North Coast 500 - Day 7

[AJ86]

Today is our last full day and when we complete the NC500. From Wick we are heading to the airport where we will drop the car off.

Fist up we have a bit more exploring to do, just outside of Wick is Castle Sinclair where we park up and have a good nose around, it was an amazing site and the descriptions provided really brought it to life for me. Again i'm really fascinated with the history of the castle and what a community it used to be.

From the castle we fill the car up at Tesco, and head on down the coast back towards Inverness. The road hugs the coast and offers lovely views again either side of us, around 30 mins we arrive at Dunbeath Castle, its super foggy at this point and can hardly see this massive castle. We don’t go in, but park up and take the path down the side and head to the beach. It's really quaint at the beach with the fog, peacefulness and the sound of the water lapping against the rocks.

From here we head a little down the coast and pop into a coop for some lunch for later on. We are at a bit of a loss of what to do next, way to early to head back to the airport and not wanting to go into Inverness again, a quick google brings up Rogie Falls for us to see the Salmon jumping up stream. Its a bit of a trek for us, and takes around 2 hours to get there, it's not too bad a drive with main roads all the way. I had put a play list together and snuck in a couple of Donald where's your trousers in for the amusement of my wife!

We arrive at the Rogie falls and squeeze the little fiat into a tiny space. Its super busy being the weekend and can see a lot more tourists around and about. It's a short walk to the falls and before long we are looking out for Salmon. It doesn’t take long and then we spot a few jumping out the water, none are successful, and do wonder how they will get up such a steep fall.

Still not wanting to go to the hotel yet, we consult google maps for our next port of call and decide on Fortrose on the Black isle.

It takes us around 30 mins to get to Chanonry point, and we park up and take a walk around the beach and settle on a bench for a snack and to watch the water. There is a possibility of spotting dolphins here, but they don’t feel like showing themselves today, so we just enjoy the views and our last part of the trip.

At Chanonry point you can see the airport across the Firth shame there is no car ferry, instead its a 30 mins drive back though inverness. We pop back to the Tesco we first visited to fill up the tank before heading to the airport.

Our hotel for the night is the Courtyard by Marriott at the airport, so we drop our bags off at the hotel which overlooks the airport and the car hire centre, so I drop her back off and pop the keys in the drop box. The hotel room is lovely and modern, and we order a take out from the restaurant. Nothing good on tv so we pop a few more Disney films on the Ipad before settling into the lovely huge bed.

Our little car had done an amazing job for us, took us up some super steep hills, squeezed in and out of different passing places, and was also good on the fuel.

We had done 683 miles in this little car and loved them all!

Day 8