Day 1:
The NC500 route officially starts in Inverness, but we’d been there before and it felt right to begin the journey beside water filled with stories, so we began our camping road trip at Loch Ness.
The forecast promised rain, but it never arrived. Instead, something else hung in the air. Something heavy and difficult to name. The feeling that certain places carry much more than landscape.
I made friends with a rook.
Or perhaps we simply recognised something in one another. We shared a square of flapjack and a healthy appreciation for opportunism. Appetite is an interesting thing, isn’t it? Instinctive, exciting and occasionally dangerous.
During that first evening, beneath a Scottish sky, within range of the vast dark water of Loch Ness, excitement fizzed beneath my skin with every touch of breeze.
My husband is the keen camper, but much like the rook I found myself willing to be tempted.
The road stretched north.
There were six nights ahead of us.
And already I was hungry for what might be waiting around the next bend.
R. H. DIXON 