‘The UK’s best road’
Nick Sanders’ epic lap of the UK
Suddenly there’s an absence of the camper van cavalcade tailgating each other, cold beers wrapped up in their cooler cabinets. Instead, a warm wind wrapped around the bleak hills along Loch Eriboll here on the north coast of Scotland, where there are cottages so isolated they have their own postcode.
There had been a blue sky for days and it was a happy coincidence I had everything I could see all to myself. The views have a film star quality. The bike was running well and light reflected from off the sea was luminescent. The lack of population and people passing through gives the landscape an eeriness deeper than anywhere else in Britain. Up here in this wilderness, whether you ride or stand by your machine and just look, your immersion in its magnificence is enveloping. I can’t quite decide which I prefer; standing and looking, or riding through it – but heather, gorse, rocks, blustery weather, cloud, it all rubbed up hard against me as I was pulled inside-out by the size of my smile realising this as one of the best rides I’ve ever done in the world. Timing is essential, and weather is a bonus – but it’s a ride that just has to be attempted. So, here, on a road as narrow as a car, its edges clip the shore of a loch or a sea. Sky moody, changing to menace with a dark horizon the colour of the road whipping up a crosswind forcing me to countersteer on the bars, not fast, but trees rush past as I grip harder into corners... blind summits, bit of rain, then down again when you notice the flat valley floor east of Durness. There, a mosaic of heath, blanket bog, tiny purple heads of Scottish primrose all shifted as I set about my lodgings for the night. You can have it all riding around the UK – but maybe not just all at once. So it was time to stop again to take in more of the sea. You don’t meet many folk her in the wild north – because there aren’t many. When a young chap leaped off a wall and headed for the shore, I stopped to watch him across the sea
‘It’s among the finest riding on the whole coast’
stones and kelp. 30 minutes later he came back with a bag heaving with mussels, opened one and ate it raw, smoked a cigarette, told me his life story, then went on his way again. It’s one of the endless fascinations of passing through places – constantly leaving other realities in your wake. I sometimes wonder as bikers when
‘Immersion in the wild magnificence is enveloping’
we wake up in a different place in a different time, are we different people, too?
As you dip down the isthmus of Tongue, the narrowness of the road achieves a focused intensity of riding as you taste the sea on the air. It’s not long, hard or fast but it is amongst the finest riding on the whole British coast and feels satisfyingly like another country altogether.
For me, an understated reason for travel is the search of places that remind me of where I was happiest. The younger you is more impressionable and time makes for imperfect memory. At Bettyhill a café sign directs me down to a village the size of a few houses barely fields away from the sea. The tops of conifers wiggle at their tips against strong earthy colours to make up an ocean of land. Inside the store, warm with sweet aromas of cooking and ketchup, the cosiness is helped with shelves of exotic botanicals and gin. Outside it was cold and raw, inviting you instead to put up your tent by the roadside and get pissed. Up here, it’s like a membership. Once you know the magic of the land you can feel you’re actually communicating with your bike instead of just sitting on it surfing the traffic.
John O’Groats was freezing, wet, windy and bedraggled.
A sweet natured couple were honeymooning on the campsite there – which I thought was very brave – whilst I took a room in Wick for a bit more civilised comfort. Even as the euphoria flows less richly whilst riding through the less remarkable landscape of the A86, with its sweeping bends to Fraserburgh, the fields still looked pretty enough lushly servicing dirty grey sheep. Still in the Highlands the cows stand still, like cut outs on cliff edges between me and that dark, mean sea. Views are a jigsaw of castles, walled gardens, and increasingly of other people on the move and venturing into cafés. I ride my bike to feel alive. I want to feel all there is to feel, to feel tired today, do it again tomorrow. I want to cook my food on the side of the road and sleep in a tent cosy against hard winds and rain. Down the back roads tight against the Northumbrian coast I’m slowly making my way to Hull and the impressive landmark of the Humber Bridge. Gateway to the next episode of this journey.