South end: Inverness Length 830.4 km | North end: Inverness Major cities Inverness | |
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Primary
destinations: Inverness, Lochcarron, Applecross, Gairloch, Ullapool, Lochinver, Durness, Thurso, John o' Groats, Wick, Helmsdale, Dornoch, Invergordon, Dingwall | ||
Discover the north coast 500 scotland s route 66
The North Coast 500 is a 516-mile (830 km) scenic route around the north coast of Scotland, starting and ending at Inverness Castle. The North Coast 500 (Also known as NC500) was created by the North Highland Initiative and was designed to bring together the best of the north Highlands of Scotland in one iconic touring route.
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Scotland s north coast 500
Route
The route runs through the traditional counties of Inverness-shire, Ross and Cromarty, Sutherland and Caithness.
Working clockwise, the route starts at Inverness and runs via Muir of Ord, Applecross, Gairloch, Ullapool, Durness, Thurso, John o'Groats, Wick, Dunrobin Castle, Dingwall then back to Muir of Ord and Inverness.
History
The concept of the North Coast 500 was launched in March 2015 by the Tourism Project Board of the North Highland Initiative (NHI) in an attempt to work with all aspects of the tourism sector to bring unified benefits to businesses across the route. It was identified that a gap existed in the market within the North Highlands for a tourism offering that included each county of the area (Caithness, Sutherland & Ross-shire) and that the North Coast 500 would address that. The initiative was supported by Visit Scotland and Highlands & Islands Enterprise.
In 2015 the route was named fifth in Now Travel Magazine's "Top 5 Coastal Routes in the World". It has been described as "Scotland's Route 66".
The NC500 is also regarded as a challenge for endurance cyclists. In August 2015 adventure cyclist Mark Beaumont established the record for the 516 mile route, completing it in 37 hours and 58 minutes. On June the 18th 2016 former pro cyclist and commonwealth games medallist James McCallum completed the ride in 31 hours 23 minutes beating the initial record by more than 6 hours.
