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]

Wednesday, 9 January 2008

LEJOG Planning Passes 1000 Mile Mark

Things have been quiet on the LEJOG planning front for a while. Having sped through England and Wales in a matter of weeks, Scotland has been taking me somewhat longer, partially because it’s been more difficult to plan but mainly because I’ve just not been dedicating enough time to it (and it wasn’t helped by operator error which saw me have to undo an entire afternoon’s work; three days forward, three days back, all in the space of a day).

However, tonight the planning reached Fort Augustus (via the fifth option that I described here), which takes the cumulative mileage to 1012 miles – which feels like a significant number.


Theoretically a few more days of battling with Anquet mapping should see the first cut of the mapping complete (the first cut may be the final cut, or I may tinker a little). The only fly in that optimistic ointment is that now that I look at the maps and books again, I have no idea how it was that I intended to proceed from Fort Augustus to Glen Affric, and why I thought that that was a good direction to take. Hopefully after a bit more staring at the maps and books and a bit more head-scratching it will all flood back to me.

4 comments:

  1. Hi Gayle! I did Ft Aggie to Glen Affric on my walk. It can be quite straightforward: Try niping over the hill to Torgyle Bridge, then in poor weather by track over to Hilton Lodge, Cougie then Affric or in good just over the hill to Cougie.
    Wonderful country!
    I envy you massively

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  2. Congratulations by the way - That's a hell of a lot of planning! I know what a complete bast**d it is to use Anquet!

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  3. When are you planning to set off by the way? (I think you did mention it but i can't find it)

    Will you be walking for any particular charity? (Be careful with that, as it can put a lot of constraints on your walk - I was lucky in that the guys I was walking for were briliant and helped out in the background for me)

    Getting into the real meat of it now :)

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  4. Well my head-scratching and map-poring last night led me to a route via Torgyle Bridge and Hilton Lodge and ending the day in Cannich. I'm not sure whether that was what I originally had in mind, and it gives rather a long day, but at least the scenery should distract us from the distance (and surely we should be reasonably fit by then!)!

    As for start date, the date that we set was 14 April. With the turns that events have taken, family health issues may dictate that we move that date (and EEEK, it's getting awful close isn't it?).

    The charity issue is a bit of a tricky one. This was a walk that we decided to do entirely for ourselves and not for any charitable purposes. However, so many people have offered us sponsorship, that we can't ignore the opportunity to raise a few pounds for a worthy cause. So, we will have a sponsorship page - but more as a side-product than as the focus of our walk. Our current vote is to raise for Macmillan Cancer Support.

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