Is this the best / cheapest place to buy one from?
how long is a piece of string?

I picked up a Pickit2 from Microchip with 16F887 development board in a promo last year for <£10 delivered, so keep your eyes open for promo's

They flog the PK2 programmer on its own for £25 + carriage + VAT.
http://www.microchipdirect.com/produ...words=pickit+2

There are some very simple DIY PC comport programmers if you want to DIY. You can download the software (MPLAB 8.2 etc.) FOC from the Microchip web site.

[edit]

I think I have stepper driver code for 16 bit pics somewhere, if you want to pinch it.