Oly Torch to blaze new path

What Britain lacks in altitude, it plans to makes up for with the many modes of transport used over the 70-day tour, however.

Organisers LOCOG provided more details on Monday about a tour that will culminate with the lighting of the cauldron on July 27 after the flame travels down the River Thames from Hampton Court Palace.

The 8,000 mile route will take in landmarks around Britain with the flame travelling at times by canal boat, cable car, tram, steam train, hot air balloon and even motorcycle sidecar on the Isle of Man TT course.

It will be carried on horseback, abseiled down a tower, ferried across Loch Ness in Scotland, skated across an ice rink, taken by chair lift and transported on a mountain railway to the summit of Snowdon in North Wales.

More than 95 percent of the population will be within an hour of the route. London has chosen a lower profile relay than the ambitious and expensive international route to Beijing in 2008, which included the problematic ascent of Everest.

The details released on Monday did not mention any excursion outside Britain but there remain plans for the torch to travel south from Northern Ireland to Dublin in the Republic to highlight the peace process.

The torch will pass through every county in England and all local authority areas in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland after it is flown in from Greece on May 18.

The journey around Britain, taking in 1,018 villages, towns and cities, starts the next morning when the first of the 8,000 chosen torchbearers sets off from Land's End on the south-western tip of England.