The Road goes ever on and on; Down from the door where it began;
Now far ahead the Road has gone; And I must follow, if I can;
Pursuing it with eager feet; Until it joins some larger way;
Where many paths and errands met; And whither then? I cannot say.

[JRR Tolkien, Lord of the Rings]

Thursday 26 July 2007

LEJOG Route Planning (1)

The route planning has now reached the Scottish Border, which feels like a big milestone.

It also feels like the most interesting, but most difficult, planning is yet to come.

For England/Wales I always had a notion of the route that we would take and the reality has deviated only slightly from that (Cheddar and Bridgwater being two surprise places that I hadn’t expected to incorporate, but I didn’t fancy the traditional route via Glastonbury and Bath). Planning has also been made easier for great swathes of the route so far by incorporating a couple of Long Distance Paths (part of the Offa’s Dyke Path and the Pennine Way).

For Scotland I don’t have any great plan and it’s complicated by my initial starting point of not incorporating any LDPs (bear in mind, however, that I am female and thus am at liberty to change my mind on any point, at any time!).

Off the top of my head, I’d say that I don’t want to go into Edinburgh itself and that we will take the direct route up to the north-west, rather than detouring via the West Highland and Great Glen Ways. That’s not a lot of information to get started with.

I think that there could be a couple of evenings sprawling on the floor with books and maps coming up quite soon.

Which brings me nicely to the subject of route planning and how I’ve gone about it so far …

1 comment:

  1. OOH!

    The vicarious pleasures of route planning! You really must visit the north west of Scotland - sensational scenery and wonderful people (having said that gibberish, most people I met on my walk along the entire length of Britain were pretty wonderful)

    Added to that, some of my most memorable days were not those in the places with the 'best' scenery!

    I spent ages trying to plan my 'perfect' route, but found that regardless of the planning I had an amazing time.

    I really believe that if you walk with an open mind and an open heart you will have the time of your lives.

    You will have a wonderful time.

    All the best
    Alan

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