Scotland Wales and England Sept-Oct '24

Looks fun! Consider a "two together" railcard to save you $. Price it out to be sure it's worth it. ( I assume you'll be taking the train in/around England too, not just the one to Inverness.) And - London to Inverness is long. We took the train from Dundee to London, about 6 hours with a few stops, but we enjoyed the scenery. But if you aren't solid on that method of transportation, consider flying to Inverness instead.

Thanks Lynwood. We will hire a car in Inverness to do the rest of the UK mainland. Yes we saw the railcard discount and are following that up to book today. Yes its a long train trip and the railcard makes 1st class affordable. I wonder should we take food with us on the train - not sure about where the train stops and for how long. We will use the railcard in London final stop for 5 days at the end of our trip. Thanks again for your reply.

If you do travel by train to Inverness in 1st class you will get a pretty endless supply of free food and drink, so no need to take extra.

But Kings Cross and especially St Pancras over the road have a large range of stores to buy stocks.

The train makes a number of stops but all are just a minute or two. None are "fresh air stops" with extended dwell times. The longest stop is at Edinburgh, but the stop is in what I call the annexe station- a pair of platforms beyond the main train shed. Thus the stop is not long enough to go over the bridge to the main station to grab anything.

For your four days in London buy a weekly travelcard with your railcard- that will save you 1/3 over the weekly/daily caps if you were to pay by contactless methods.

Lairg is a delightfully different choice for this forum. It used to be my overnight stop on the long journey north to Orkney, a village I like. I don't know what route you plan coming off the ferry but I suggest the A836 to Tongue which then turns inland through Altnaharra to Tongue.

If you are on the early boat over you even have time to continue on from Tongue on the A838 to Smoo Cave and Durness, onto Laxford Bridge then then staying on the A838 all the way to Lairg.

This is late September so not the usual issues with traffic on the NC500 (as that is part of) - either route makes for a very scenic day.

Driving from Ayrshire to Wales you will have to drive through Northern England, which has a wealth of places of interest. It looks from your plans like you are interested in rural sites rather than cities? If so, consider the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales as rural areas convenient to visit on your way south down the west coast. the Peak District further south would be another place to stop.

If you do want to see some urban areas then both Liverpool and Manchester have lots to detain the visitor and Chester is a beautiful Roman city and the access point to North Wales.

Thank you isn31c and Johnnew. Yes we like country areas and ruins and historic villages. Good to know Lairg is recommended for a stay over. Not much available in Lairg but we're thinking of leaving some accomodation options up until we are in Scotland. Good to know about the train journey and recommendations for Liverpool and Manchester we had planned to avoid most cities. We'll look Chester up, sounds lovely.

The place I have used in Lairg is the Lairg Highland Hotel- https://www.highland-hotel.co.uk/

I also recommend looking into the Ferrycroft Visitor Centre just at the south end of the Village where there is a wealth of information about the area, and a cafe. Two walks start from there- one to a ruined broch, the other to explore the archaeology of the area