With winter finally feeling like it had come to an end and travel opening up again, I started talking with friends about some trip ideas. In reality flying was still out of the question, so we looked to the mainland UK for some inspiration. The North Coast 500 was something I’d heard about from many friends over the years but not something I’d fully looked in to.

Bringing together a route of just over 500 miles of stunning coastal scenery, the North Coast 500 naturally follows the main roads along the coastal edges of the North Highlands of Scotland, taking in the regions of Wester Ross, Sutherland, Caithness, Easter Ross, the Black Isle and Inverness-shire.

The route begins and ends at Inverness Castle. Perched on top of a hill it is the perfect starting point to the route and offers unparalleled views over the capital city of the Highlands.

Together with friends Lawrence and Ollie, we decided this would be the perfect route and decided on the dates. Logistics were easy: one train from Kings Cross in London all the way up to Inverness, which was actually pretty cheap. For the savings on a family ticket we needed one extra person to bring our group to four. After some asking around Ollie’s friend Gabe pulled the trigger and that was that. We were going to Scotland!

We had thought about how to document our trip and make the most of what was sure to be an epic adventure, and as Lawrence runs a successful YouTube channel we would have that as a great platform to showcase what we got up to. Having professional photos would be the cherry on the top.

I had previously asked my friend and professional photographer Alex Duffill if he would like to join us on the the trip as our fourth rider, although he was very interested in taking on the ride alongside us the opportunity to come and photograph instead became more appealing once I started to tell him the distance and how it would probably snow or rain at least once a day... A warm car was decided upon as his mode of transport and just like that four became five.