Over the years, I have followed numerous driving itineraries in England and Scotland — through the West Country, the Cotswolds, the Highlands, to name but three — but they have invariably been circular and self-contained. On this trip I constructed a route that links the two countries together. I decided that our point of departure would be York, a historic city at the southern edge of the Yorkshire Dales National Park, and that we would conclude our journey in Edinburgh.