Somehow I just knew that someone would have tried doing this challenge before. Little did I know that they would have tried it 15 years ago! A shout goes out to Gary Seamarks, contributor at The Oxford & Chilterns Bus Page. He's tried working out his own itinerary around the same time as I was planning mine, back in February. The basic route is the same, although there are slight variations and it is spread out slightly further over seven days. You'll be able to compare his plan with mine – what I'll be doing is posting the full timetable for each day of my route the night before.
Gary has also found an article from The Midland Counties news sheet of November 1994, in which Peter Offord details a possible route in the opposite direction. Did he actually attempt it, or was it simply one of those exercises on paper? Leave a comment if you know more. Here are the details of his route:
Day 1
Dover – Folkestone – Brighton – Portsmouth – Winchester
(Brighton & Hove now operate the service between Eastbourne and Brighton)
Day 2
Winchester – Andover – Swindon – Oxford – Northampton
Day 3
Northampton – Nottingham – Sheffield – Leeds – Lancaster – Kendal
(United Counties – now Stagecoach East – used to operate one service a day between Northampton and Nottingham; Stagecoach had a shareholding in Mainline – now First South Yorkshire – who operated the X32 between Sheffield and Leeds; Ribble – now Stagecoach North West – operated a Lancashire Coastliner service from Leeds to Morecambe)
Day 4
Kendal – Carlisle – Dumfries – Cumnock – Kilmarnock – Glasgow – Dundee – Perth
Day 5
Perth – Banchory – Aberdeen – Inverness
(Summer Wednesday and Friday only Heatherhopper service between Perth and Banchory)
Day 6
Inverness – Durness Point
(Summer only tourist service, one return journey per day)
It's interesting to note that even fifteen years ago, the general basics for a national journey were already there. I've benefitted from the purchase by Stagecoach of Highlands and Traction Group in the past five years to fill in some of the gaps with slightly more credible options. There's less than a week to go now: I'm really looking forward to it.
Image credit: Iantherev
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