The Route

The route is something that will probably evolve over time. I have plotted a route using TrackLogs software, but there are almost certainly numerous refinements yet to be made.
The original plan was to follow the Northern coast of Scotland from the central belt all the way back round to the start point. This is fairly straightforward on the West coast, where there are far fewer roads, far less settlement and, consequently, far fewer choices. It gets far more complicated on the East coast, especially as you head South of Inverness. Two of Scotland's largest cities are on the East coast, Dundee & Aberdeen & are fairly hard to avoid. One of the basic ideas of this trip is to avoid large conurbations, which would be very difficult if I follow the coast. I am therefore considering taking off the corner from Inverness & heading South from there, missing the coast entirely for the last section. This shaves about 100 miles off the route & includes 2 monstrous climbs (The Lecht Road & the road over Glenshee ski station, both markedly over 600m above sea level). This would mean that the route included the biggest road climbs in Scotland (Bealach ne Ba is also included on the West coast) and the highest road in Britain (Glenshee, 670m). At the moment, I'm tempted by the option with the hills, although I will probably end up hating myself on the day I have to do them!
I'll put the outline up day by day as separate posts.