A piece of offshore equipment which came off the back of a lorry blocked the north’s busiest road for over an hour on Thursday.
The vehicle, carrying two large anchor buoys, was heading northbound on the Inverness to Wick trunk road when the rear buoy careered on to the road.
Police were called to the scene around 3.40pm as the object lay strewn across the middle of the carriageway.
Two police units were stationed at the scene for some time diverting traffic along either side of the object.
A crew from BEAR Scotland were also sent to assist.
A spokesperson for BEAR Scotland said: “Around 15.40pm today, we received a call from Police Scotland to say that part of a lorry’s load had fallen on to the A9 south of Tore Roundabout. We dispatched the Trunk Road Incident Support Service unit to assist the police which arrived on site at 3.50pm.
“One lane of the northbound A9 dual carriageway was closed until 5pm when the road was completely reopened.”
The incident led to lengthy tailbacks along the A9, with motorists left queuing for several miles, before the road fully re-opened around 5pm.
