A very good turnout of 22 cars and 38 people on the club’s last outing for 2021 took place on Sat 23rd October when it ventured into the very remote parts of Sutherland on mostly single track roads which were fortunately devoid of any significant traffic to hinder our progress.
Our trip started from Braeview Park and we were very pleased to see 10 year old Paul Cowley with his dad to take photos of all the cars. About 2 weeks ago Paul’s mum had rung Gil to see if some of our club members could run up to their home in Contin with our cars to surprise him on his birthday. This we duly did and Paul was delighted to have a run in a Lotus Elise and he was presented with a Club Mug.
We started with a run to Tain where we had a great welcome at the Platform 1864 Station Café where they served lovely home baking to go with our coffee/tea. Then we proceeded in two separate groups timewise to allow our lunch stop to be accommodated more easily. We went north in heavy rain conditions to Helmsdale which fortunately subsided as we turned inland to motor to Kinbrace and then swung left to Syre and then left to Altnaharra.
Then between there and Lairg we arrive at the remote Crask Inn where they provided us with an excellent lunch of home made soups, sandwiches and cakes. Then we proceeded home via Lairg, Bonar Bridge, Ardgay and over the Struie to join the A9 home.
It was fortunate we did this trip now as from this week on some of these roads will be closed and from the evidence we saw of heavy plant machinery in place at various points along our route it looks like wind farm construction is about to take place.