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 4 June 2009

Blogging LEJOGgers Update

A few weeks ago I mentioned a few LEJOGers who had started blogging their journeys north and one blogging JOGLEr who was due to set out in June. Subsequent to that post another LEJOG Blogger was pointed out to me (thank you Karen!). Here’s an update:

Finished
Last week Aly and Malcolm finished their LEJOG run (yes that’s right, they ran it and without taking a single day off, although they did refer to any day of fewer than 20 miles as a ‘rest day’). Their regular updates were short and to the point so if you didn’t follow them at the time it won’t take a dreadfully long time to skim through their adventure retrospectively. Having read and enjoyed all of their updates along the way, I stand in awe of anyone running such distances every day for seven weeks.

Still Going Strong
I met up with Geoff for a couple of days’ of walking at the beginning of May, and he is now in the north of Scotland with only a handful of days left to go – and it’s good to see that he’s loving it. He’s just off into the wilds of north west Scotland now, so there should still be interesting reports to read between now and when he finishes.

Then there’s Brendan who should today (by my reckoning) be crossing the Scottish border. I’ve been following his blog since he was way down south and have found it a particularly interesting read, as he started out from Land’s End as something of a novice when it came to backpacking. Now, approaching two months later, he has climbed a steep learning curve and there’s barely a hint of the obstacles he had to contend with at the outset. He’s still having the occasional crisis of confidence as to not going fast enough or that he’s carrying too much gear, but perhaps we only know about that because of his detailed and open blogging style.

Just started
And on Monday this week Sophie and her dog Patch set out from John O’Groats to walk south. There have only been a couple of blog entries so far, but I will be following her travels with interest and wish her all the best.

5 comments:

  1. Just Finished!

    See http://walkingendtoend.blogspot.com/

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  2. I am enjoying following your blog; it's always interesting and well written.

    From your exeperience to date what do you reckon is the best means of transmitting blogs on a long distance walk asuming you can recharge from mains electric every two or three days?

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  3. Oops! just noticed I left an s out of assuming.

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  4. Hi Endtoendwalker. I just had a quick look at your blog and you've mentioned passing someone else on your travels: a man who's doing a JOGLE walk dressed as a 17th Century pikeman!

    http://thecharitypikeman.blogspot.com/

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  5. Hi Conrad,
    Thanks for your kind words about my witterings.

    Eeeh, the subject of a mobile blogging device - I could write an entire essay on that.

    As you may recall, last year I was using a Pocketmail which had the benefit of a touch-typable keyboard and ran of AA batteries. It wasn't dreadfully heavy and although the technology is very old there were few days when I couldn't post my blog because I could send it from any phone (mobile or landline). I really like that device and may well reactivate it for our big walk next year. The downside is that it can't do photos and the subscription becomes a bit steep when the £:$ exchange rate goes out of favour. (I wrote a post about it last year - it's in the LEJOG section in the right hand menu.)

    So, for the TGO Challenge in May I bought a LG KS360 mobile phone for £80, which I had on Pay As You Go, so no regular outgoing. It was a workable solution and did allow me to post photos, but it also was a bit limited. What it did prove to me was that I could type tolerably fast on the little keyboard and that what I really wanted was a Blackberry. That phone lasted about 5-6 days between charges (turned off except when I was blogging). It's now up for sale on Ebay.

    I finally gave in to a Blackberry and ordered a second hand one off Ebay last night. I'll report back in due course, but Martin (phreerunner.blogspot.com) has been using one successfully for a while now and with a spare battery managed to blog his Italian Border Route last year, with limited opportunity to recharge.

    By the fact that you're asking the question does that mean that you're off on another long walk?

    Anyway, hope that the knee is on the mend and that you do get to Scotland at the end of the month to knock off those final Munros.

    Gayle

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