Planning the Itinerary

I know that the UK works in ‘miles’ rather than ‘kilometers’, but for my purposes at this stage, I am more comfortable with planning in kilometers. 

In planning our tour, we have attempted to keep the daily travel distance within about 250km per day, with the exception of our trip from Scotland down to London (760km), but as it is motorway driving we should easily achieve that over 2 days.

Working with Garmin Mapsource and Google Maps, here is the proposed itinerary:

Dates	Destination	Nights	Proposed Route	Distance
26 Sep	Weymouth	1	London, Bournemouth, Corfe Castle, Weymouth	260 km
27 Sep	Paignton	1	Lyme Regis, Exeter, Torquay, Paignton	170 km
28 Sep	Hayle	1	St Austell, Mevagissey, Penzance, Land’s End, St.Ives, Hayle	250 km
29 Sep	Barnstaple	1	Tintagel, Barnstaple	170 km
30 Sep	Oxford	1	Bristol, Stratford-Upon-Avon, Witney	280 km
01 Oct	Northampton	1	Oxford, Northampton	150 km
02 Oct	Cambridge	1	Cambridge, Newmarket	120 km
03 Oct	Norwich	1	Ipswich, Norfolk Broads	80 km
04 Oct	King's Lynn	1	King's Lynn, Skegness, Lincoln,The Wash	100 km
05 Oct	Market Harborough	1	Market Harborough	120 km
06 Oct - 12 Oct	Grand Union Canal	7	Narrow Boat Cruise	-
13 Oct	Manchester	1	Sheffield, Snake Pass, Manchester	220 km
14 Oct	Kendal	1	Bury Market, Yorkshire Dales	100 km
15 Oct	Windermere	1	Lake District, Cumbria	100 km
16 Oct	Stirling	1	Gretna Green, Falkirk, Stirling	250 km
17 Oct - 23 Oct	Aberfeldy	7	Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Inverness, Isle of Skye, Fort William, Glasgow	1650 km
24 Oct	Preston	1	Aberfeldy to Preston	400 km
25 Oct	London	1	Preston to London	360 km
26 Oct - 28 Oct	Paris	3	Eurostar to Paris, Hotel in the Latin Quarter	-
29 Oct	London	1	Eurostar to London, Heathrow Hotel	-
30 Oct		-	Heathrow - Flight to JNB	-

The route in Garmin Mapsource:

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.