Erin Baker: I've found the best road in the world!

I was going to write about the UK’s top 10 driving routes, but why bother, when there’s only one: the NC500?
I’ve just got back from experiencing the drive in a Rolls-Royce Ghost Black Badge edition – the new specification that includes a black Spirit of Ecstasy and has brought down the average age of a Rolls-Royce buyer even further, to about 40 years old.

More of the car in our First Glance section shortly; for now, I want to concentrate on the drive. Because, while half of me applauds the attempt to get more tourist revenue to this sparsely populated and stunning part of the country, the other half of me wants it all kept a magnificent secret, with the roads all to myself, as I largely had them this week, and every other time I've gone on a car launch up there.

It feels like the last 500 miles of empty Tarmac in the country, and every fibre in any sentient human would reject the notion of the driverless car at this point, in this place. The Highlands were built by God for the motor car. Of that I'm sure. Nothing but switchbacks scything through the bracken and peat bogs for as far as the eye can see. Burly Highland cattle and slow-moving sheep are the only hazards, plus, at this time of year, the occasional campervan. But no one is stressed, or in a hurry, so everyone pulls over to let you pass, with the result that we barely slowed for 500 glorious miles of big skies, lochs, boulders, pine forests and waterfalls.

You head north, over the huge bridge onto the A9, and straight up towards Ackergill Tower at Wick, keeping the bowl of the ocean on your right, the curvature of the Earth almost visible. Round to the left when you can go no further, and pause briefly to admire the Queen Mother’s beloved Castle of Mey. Past Dunnet Bay and Scrabster, the houses few, the clouds rolling in on the rough Viking seas, and on to Bettyhill, where the ground softens and the coastline is chopped and scattered into bays and inlets that open out into brooding, shadowy sea lochs.

Then down into the beautiful, Disney-esque hamlet of Tongue before you round Cape Wraith, which signals the point at which Scandinavian sailors should turn right for home. Past Hanna Island, where the Puffins plunge off the cliffs to raft in the sea for a week before heading into the ocean’s cresting winter rollers to give birth, and into the shelter of Badcall Bay, 250 miles after we set off.

Thanks to the Rolls' famous waftability, when we arrived at Badcall Bay, where the evening sun lit up the Nordic islands scattered round the inlet, we languidly stepped out from the white and black leather interior and felt as if we had travelled a tenth of the distance, so rested were our limbs.

The next morning, after a night at the welcoming Eddrachillis Hotel, at the owner’s urging we took the single-lane, twisting B869 past Drumbeg, which has Scotland’s finest village store overlooking a little tarn and serval mooching Highland Cattle. We stocked up on walnut and stilton oatcakes from the owner (from Reading, obviously) and went on, diverting again for four miles to the weather-blasted lighthouse at Stoer. Just beyond, Achmelvich bay dazzled even in the overcast mizzle, its white sands and pale blue sea entertaining a solitary seal.

Then down, and inland slightly, through rock-strewn hills and valleys, every turn eliciting a gasp of awe at the wilderness. Finally, to Loch Ewe, shelter for the Atlantic convoys and captured U-boats (the locals at one point in World War Two could walk across the loch without getting their feet wet, so chokka were the waters with boats, ships and subs).

And finally, to Loch Torridon, which hosts many a car launch, before turning back to Inverness and, reluctantly, to a plane bound for overcrowded, over-stressed, overworked London.

The locals were talking about rich city boys having their supercars low-loaded up to the Highlands now for a weekend of charging round the coastal roads before blatting back to London. I hope not. I hope God’s country stays as perfect as it currently is: the last refuge for motoring in its purist sense – as a way to experience utter liberty, and to enhance the experience of one of the UK’s last true wildernesses.

Images courtesy of http://www.northcoast500.com/