Deciding on the Route

In the initial preparation of the itinerary, we originally planned to tour from London, through Devon and Cornwall, across to Norfolk, up to Cumbria and then down to Leicester for the canal cruise before returning to London and flying home.

But then we were informed by RCI that we had timeshare points that would expire in July if we hadn't utilised them.  So we managed to get a timeshare reservation for a week at the Moness Country Resort in Aberfeldy.  

Well.. now we just needed to extend our return flights by a week...pretty simple...

                                WRONG!

British Airways had no seats available for another whole week!  So... we now have another week to plan...  what shall we do? Michelle then said she would like to go over to France and visit her favourite city... Paris.   Great!  We will go via the Eurostar. (another 'bucket list' item bites the dust!)

We now have our 5 week tour planned as follows: starting in London, visiting Surrey, Hampshire, Devon, Cornwall, Dorset, Somerset, Wiltshire, Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire, Norfolk, Lincolnshire and Leicestershire.

Then a narrowboat cruise on the Grand Union Canal from Market Harborough for a week.  (We plan to travel south as far as Braunston before returning to Market Harborough.)

After that, we tour on via Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, North Yorkshire and Cumbria.

We then travel up to Scotland (one night in Stirling), before continuing to Aberfeldy in Perthshire, where we will base ourselves for a week.  The plan is then to do day trips visiting places like Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Inverness, Loch Ness, Inverinate (Eilean Donan Castle), to name a few.

We plan to do the trip around Loch Ness and out to the Inner Hebrides in a two day tour spending a night on the Isle of Skye in Portree (Port Righ in Gaelic).

This will give me the opportunity to cross another item off my list by visiting the distillery of my favourite Single Malt Whisky... Talisker!   

After Scotland we travel down to Preston for a night before returning to London to return the hire car and spend the night in a hotel.

The next morning we take the Eurostar to Paris where we will spend 3 nights before returning to London for one night and flying back to South Africa.