The 2012 Great Expedition

[vampyresheep]

In between sorting and uploading photos from the past few weekends, I've taken a break from my sewing to get on with my other little obsession, travel planning! :-)
We've decided to take a break from Leipzig next year as we've neglected our old tradition of UK holidays, with one big chunk of the country yet to be explored - Scotland!

Given my love of maps, one little ambition I've always longed to fulfil is a road trip around the north-west coast of Scotland, so I gave myself a deadline of doing it before the next *ahem* landmark birthday.  So, whilst you lot are all in Leipzig for Wave Gotik Treffen, this is where Rob and I plan to be:

Day 1: London to Carlisle area

 Day 2 - Carlisle area to Helensburgh (visit the Mackintosh designed Hill House in the afternoon)

 Day 3 - Helensburgh to Fort William, via Loch Lomond

 Day 4 - Fort William to Kyle of Localsh area (Eilean Donan castle en-route)

 Day 5 - stay 2nd night in Kyle of Localsh area, daytrip drive to Skye.

 Day 6 - Kyle of Localsh to Gairloch

 Day 7 - Gairloch to Ullapool

 Day 8 - stay 2nd night in Ullapool, maybe boat trip.

 Day 9 - Ullapool to Durness

 Day 10 - stay 2nd night in Durness, visit Smoo Cave or Cape Wrath.

 Day 11 - Durness to Dornoch, via Tongue and Lairg (bit iffy about that one as it seems a long route through wilderness but Rob claims he's happy enough to drive that distance in one day!)

 Day 12 - Dornoch to Inverness

 Day 13 - stay 2nd night in Inverness, visit local attractions (loch ness, fort George?)

 Day 14 - Inverness to Pitlochry (or possibly Perth) via Aviemore

 Day 15 - Pitlochry (or Perth) to Stirling (I've been to Stirling before and want to take the Rob there to see the lovely cemetery on the hill and castle)

 Day 16 - Stirling to Peebles area? Must go via Rosslyn Chapel but decided on best stopover point after that - will decide on accommodation options I suppose

 Day 17 - Peebles to Lancaster area

Day 18 - back home to London.

Already turning out a bit scarily expensive, as i evidently can't add up - calculated originally for 15 nights but that turned out to be 18!  So now the task commences of finding affordable accommodation - we don't plan to rough it too much! - seems rather early for making enquiries but everyone I've spoken to says that if budget is paramount, the sooner the better.

So any tips on interesting, affordable accommodation (already found one hostel which has rooms in a train carriage, so I think we're going for that one for a start!) and any places to visit which are on my marked out route  (ie much as I'd like to visit Orkney etc, will have to save that for another trip as i can't do the entire country in two weeks!) may well be appreciated!