2 Fatties in a Fiat 500 - North Coast 500 - Day 6

[AJ86]

Breakfast at the hotel is delivered to your room and is a cheese and tomato sandwich, cereal, fruit and a muffin, not too bad but can’t wait for the days when hotel buffets start up again!

Todays journey will take us from Tongue to Wick, covering around 80 miles.

The journey out of Tounge was lovely and continued on with the wonderful scenery, then around 15 mins from Tounge the scenery got a little uninspired, it was ok, but fairly flat with not a lot around us, and the last few days had really spoilt us.

Around an hour from Tongue we ended up in Thurso, which is the most northerly town I believe, and the biggest town we had seen for a couple of days. We pop into Tesco to pick up some lunch for today and take it with us to our first stop of Dunnet Head.

We park up and get a spot overlooking the sea, we take a stroll around and admire the infinite amount of sea in front of us. We have our lunch in the car and enjoy the view and the peace and quiet.

From here we head back to the main road and towards John o'groats. We passed the castle of Mey and were going to pop in to see what we could see, but they had signs out to say only booked tickets will be allowed in, so we bypass and continue on. Before long we are at John o'Groats, not going to lie, it was a bit disappointing and obviously a massive tourist trap, with paid parking, lots of expensive gift shops and a disappointing looking restaurant. We take the usual pictures and have a wonder around before leaving. I’m glad we went but wouldn’t rush back.

Next stop we go to Duncasby head lighthouse for another view point and a wonder around we were going to take the walk to the stacks but it started to rain and was getting a bit chilly so passed and went onto Wick.

Our hotel for the night is the Mackays hotel Wick, we grab the last spot on the street outside and check in, our room over looks the river, and is lovely and homely.

We have a little walk around Wick and see the world's shortest street (Ebenezer Place) just outside the hotel. The restaurant at the hotel was a bit fancy for us and not what we were after, so we head to the nearest fish and chip shop, its fairly busy with a lot of locals so it must be good. Now this is where I make a fatal error. I ask for Haddock and chips, and with my mask on and lack of accent it gets lost in translation.

Back at the hotel we unpack our take away and say to each other this fish looks a weird shape, I cut into mine and we have haggis! Eugh! The chip shop is closed now so can't take it back, so I scrape it off the chips and we just have these. Lesson for the day is if you want fish and chips, just say fish super and they will sort the rest out for you!

We watch a bit of TV and head to bed after another lovely day.


Day 7