The Next Big Walk

Originally we had three contenders for the walking agenda for the first half of next year:

Plan A was to apply if we didn’t get a place on the TGOC, and would see us continuing our ‘British Extremeties series’, with us walking from Lowestoft to the Point of Ardnamurchan (known in my mapping database as EtoW, being the most easterly point of the British mainland to most westerly point*).

Plan B was to apply if we did get a place on the TGOC, and would see us continuing our ‘lengths and breadths series’, with us walking the length of Wales in April before going across Scotland in May, before popping over to Europe in June, with the EtoW jaunt being postponed until 2012.

There had been talk of a slightly madder plan, which involved timing the EtoW walk such that we would arrive at Ardnamurchan around abouts the 11 May, so that we could then tag the TGOC onto the end of the outing. That plan (which we’ll call Plan C) had, however, been discounted, leaving us just with Plans A and B.

The result of the draw for the Challenge was supposed to be the deciding factor which would cause either Plan A or Plan B to be selected, but it didn’t quite turn out that way. When we got the letter telling us that we hadn’t got a place on the Challenge, but giving us a position on the stand-by list that was sufficiently low that we are almost certain to gain a place, Mick decided that he quite fancied Plan C after all.

I remained unconvinced and resisted and resisted making a decision. Finally I had to concede defeat. So many people had been told of the tentative plan that it became a reality. A start date has been selected, and thus three months today we’ll be setting out from Lowestoft to walk to the east coast of Scotland via the Point of Ardnamurchan (albeit with a bit of transport between Ardnamurchan and our TGO Challenge start point).

I’d best update the lines marked on that outline map of Britain over there on the right of the blog, hadn’t I?

(*Ardnamurchan seems to be the place that’s generally accepted as being the most westerly point, but looking at the OS map it looks to me suspiciously like Corrachadh Mor (about a km south of the Point of Ardnamurchan) just pips it)

A photo that’s only tenuously linked to the rest of the post!