Planning the Scotland Motorcycle Tour 2014
Last year we toured the Balkans as part of a large group. This year we plan to tour Scotland as a husband and wife duo. I'll be on the Triumph Explorer 1200 and Alisa will be riding a Triumph Sprint GT 1050.
The basic premise of the tour is to do a trip that is closer to home, has lower daily average mileage, covers some great roads and great scenery, gets us a little off the beaten track (covering some of the roads that I have yet to ride in Scotland), has lots of off the bike time and rest days and doesn't break the bank. That's the plan at least.
Itinerary (estimated mileage)
Day one: London to Lancaster (256 miles)
Day two: Lancaster to Wigtown (190)
Day three: Wigtown to Glasgow (100)
Day four: Glasgow to Campbeltown (130)
Day five: Campbeltown to Skye (255)
Day six: rest day
Day seven: Skye to Poolewe (158)
Day eight: Poolewe to Durness (117)
Day nine: Durness to Dornoch (169)
Day ten: Dornoch to Inverness (44)
Day eleven: Inverness to Glasgow (164)
Day twelve: rest day
Day thirteen: Glasgow to Blackpool (198)
Day fourteen: Blackpool to London (245)
The total mileage is estimated at 2,026 - but that doesn't take into account rest days where we will inevitably get on one of the bikes, failing to follow the plan and simply getting lost.
We will be staying in a mix of hotels, pub B&Bs as well as relatives to keep costs down. We also plan to stop off at some tourist traps and distilleries, which I'm sure will more than offset any austerity measures.
Alisa has done most of the hard work this time, planning routes and booking accommodation while I've thrown in suggestions for destinations like Campbeltown, some nice roads I know and ones I want to ride, as well as the names of random distilleries that I've heard of. What could possibly go wrong?
In fact we are just back from the trip and will be writing up each day. Our GPS track of the actual route can be viewed below.
