Edwin Muir set off on his Scottish Journey in 1934, travelling from Edinburgh to his childhood home of Orkney. In the spring of 2018, James McEnaney got on his motorcycle and followed in Muir's tyre tracks – completing a ten-day, 1500-mile tour of Scotland which began and ended outside the Scottish Parliament. Along the way he stayed with ordinary Scots who welcomed him into their homes, told him about their lives and, above all, helped him to understand the "confusing conglomeration" that is our home.

I LEFT LECKMELM just after 10am on day six of the journey, stopping briefly for a few photos in Ullapool before continuing on up the hill, out of the town and out into the moorland and mountains of the north west. By the end of the day I would be on Orkney (for the first time ever) but I was determined to do more than simply rush to the harbour and wait; in fact, I had chosen the ferry from Gills Bay, just outside John O Groats and 20 miles further on than the larger boat from Scrabster, precisely because its later departure time would allow me more of an opportunity to explore Caithness and Sutherland. I wanted to start by following the coast road past Achmelvich (which has one of the best beaches and campsites in the country) and Drumbeg but decided to first make a quick stop in Lochinver, a village with strong links not to Edwin Muir but to another of the great Scottish poets – Norman MacCaig. His masterpiece, A Man in Assynt, is an epic love letter to the area, the sort of poem that demands to be read periodically, and which is always at the front of my mind whenever I am lucky enough to visit this astonishing place.

The road to Lochinver passes directly by Loch Assynt, over which the ruin of Ardvreck Castle presides. Built at the end of the 16th-century by the MacLeods, the castle rises from the sloped body of a promontory at the eastern end of the loch, looking out towards the massed ranks of the mountains of Assynt. It has been a ruin since burning down in 1737 and now all that remains are the vague edges of a single tower and tumbling, empty walls reverberating back through time. This is the sort of place, like Portencross in Ayrshire, Machrie Moor on Arran or St Blane's Chapel on Bute, in which it sometimes feels possible to snatch, however fleetingly, a vision of a world long past.

MacCaig’s great poem asked if this is a place that ‘belongs to the dead’ and it is impossible to ignore the most consistent impression of the scene: the insistent, overwhelming emptiness which seems to repeatedly tap the traveller’s shoulder and point out grimly into the silence all around. It is more than just a lack of human life but rather a pronounced absence of it, a feeling made stronger by the regular echoes of that past which ones hears in passing the tumbling walls and broken homes which still, despite everything, cling on to the landscape. Imagine that someone were trying to convince you that they had completed a jigsaw even though you could see that there are pieces missing – all too often, that is how it feels to experience places like Assynt.

I had just arrived at the shoreline at Lochinver when a patch of inky cloud spilled over the bay, bringing with it a sudden flurry of swirling rain. I decided to go looking for better weather further north, and changed into my thicker, wet weather gloves before setting off once. The road skirted by glorious beaches at Achmelvich, Clachtoll and Clashnessie which, though not quite at their sparkling, sun-drenched best as I passed, are nonetheless a match for any in the country. Although I saw the first two under an overcast sky, on reaching the third I was gifted a brief explosion of golden sunshine which illuminated the white sands and turquoise water. From here the road approaches Drumbeg along the edge of a small lochan, with tiny tree-covered islands dotted across the middle, a scattering of homes on the opposite slopes and the mighty, prehistoric outline of the Quinag rising up in the background. I stopped the bike by the side of the road for no other reason than to look out over the most idyllic, dare I even say romantic, scene which I had encountered on my journey, and wondered how people who live here ever get anything done.

The Drumbeg viewpoint itself is found at the top of the next hill and looks out in the opposite direction, across the island-filled waters of Eddrachillis Bay and on to the shorelines of Scourie More and Handa, above which the grey ceiling of clouds seemed to have come to rest on a narrow band of blue and white sky. The effect of these competing contrasts was to transform the scene below into another world, one isolated within a disorientating, back-lit bubble – a little imaginary land from some voluminous fantasy novel, filled with kings and swords and sex and monsters, where the inhabitants of one of those pretty loch-side houses finds themselves swept along on a life-changing adventure.

After a short rest I was about to continue on my way when the door of a nearby campervan flicked open and a woman leaned out to ask if I would like a cup of tea, which is the sort of offer than one travelling by motorbike should never refuse. Her husband was seated in the driver's seat from where he chatted to me about the weather, the view and their drive up from Hampshire. Over a hot, sweet and very welcome drink I heard about their experience of being snowed in near Inverness, their connection to family in Scotland and their repeated visits to the area: ‘We’re up here a lot – love it here really.’ They also told me about the son whom they had recently almost lost in a horrendous motorcycle crash. This is naturally not the sort of conversation one necessarily wants to have in the middle of a biking tour of the country, but I was glad to hear that he was recovering.

I encountered another patch of heavy rain as I rejoined the main road and headed towards Unapool and, unable to outrun it, decided instead to take a quick break in Kylesku to give it a chance to pass. I stopped the bike by the old jetty where Edwin Muir would have caught a ferry 84 years ago, his journey bringing him here a full half century before the opening of the bridge that I would use to cross the narrow channel between Loch Gleann Dubh in the east and Loch a' Chairn Bhain to the west. I imagined Muir, standing next to his borrowed Standard Car, cigarette in hand, waiting patiently for the little boat to arrive, but my concentration was broken by the appearance of two scuba divers who, having suddenly emerged from the water in front of the jetty, soon – and with no explanation – plunged backwards and disappeared below the surface. The rain slowly began to ease as brighter skies emerged up ahead so I climbed back onto the bike and rolled off up the hill. Unlike the Connell Bridge which I had so disliked, the Kylesku crossing is a legitimately beautiful piece of engineering and a wonderful example of thoughtful architecture displaying real sensitivity for the environment in which the final construction will stand. Its gentle sweep as it reaches across the water, supported on two pairs of V-shaped struts which subtly soften the bridge’s hard edges, helps the whole entity to blend into the lines and frames of the landscape around and the flow of the water below. It was only opened in 1984, very nearly within my own lifetime, and must surely have transformed the pace of life here, replacing the ebb and flow of ferry crossings with immediate access – it probably encouraged more people to visit the area but it also enables them to do so without stopping. The bridge certainly represents progress (of a sort, at least) but, like everything else, there is also a downside.

It was after two o'clock by the time I reached Durness in the far northwest. It is, in its own way, a rather fascinating place with a strong ‘end of the earth’ vibe, and in the depths of winter is probably as bleak a spot as any other in the world. The entirely unremarkable buildings all seem to huddle together by the roadsides, as if fearful of the next inevitable storm – but by the time I arrived the rain had passed and the sky was showing tentative signs of co-operating with me. I expect that there is a very particular type of personality which makes one well-suited to living here and am also absolutely sure that the overwhelming majority of the general population, like me, simply do not possess it. There seemed little reason to stay long and I would simply have continued on along the road had I had not previously received two very enthusiastic, and entirely independent, recommendations to visit somewhere called Cocoa Mountain for what I was assured would be the best hot chocolate I had ever tasted. I had made good progress and had time to spare, but also had a further 90 miles of riding in front of me and, during the final ten miles leading into Durness, my right knee had started to ache badly, a sure sign of fatigue finally setting in. I decided that an allegedly life-changing hot chocolate would be a good idea after all and set about tracking it down.

A Scottish Journey, by James McEnaney, Luath Press, £12.99, is out at the end of September