Being Naughty

I'm being naughty; as I'm still looking at routes for the TGO challenge and the latest news is that there are over 420 entries which will mean that there will have to be a draw for places, so I may not get in.

One of the areas I'm looking at are wild camping sites; now while its possible to legally wild camp in most areas of Scotland, it is nice to have a rough idea of where to camp. I have been looking at the maps and this gives a reasonable idea of what the terrain looks like but not what is actually like in really life.

I've just found a site (well not really found; as I had posted photographs to it before but had complete forgotten about it) that helps turn the maps into real life.

The site is The Geograph British Isles project which 'aims to collect geographically representative photographs and information for every square kilometre of Great Britain & Ireland' which means a photograph of ever km square on the OS maps.

So if I want to see what a particular area looks like and if there is a chance of a wild pitch there; I can input the Grid Ref and a get a photograph of the area.

NO6484 is in and around the Bridge of Dye and this gives a good picture of what I would find around there (looks a good spot to camp) and of course if I want to see what is around Charr bothy I can.

I'm not to sure how the challenge purists will see this but for me it's an aid as much as the maps are.

Food

4 Brunch Bars (2 Raisin 2 Cranberry & Orange)
2 Quaker Oats (1 Apple & Blueberry 1 Sultanas, raisins, cranberry & Apple)
5 Packs Mini Time-out wafers

1 pack noddles plus black pepper & lime tuna
1 Uncle Ben's egg fried rice plus chicken pieces
1 Beef pasta soup

1 Expedition food Rice pudding & cinnamon
1 Expedition food Custard & mixed berries

8 Nescafe 3 in 1 coffees
8 Tea bags
4 bags of mini hobnobs

2 bags of Mike & Ike

1 big bag of GORP

Total weight 2065g

I think that's pretty good for 4 days food; although I would like a bit less chocolate but I can never really find anything to replace it with.

It all starts with planning

It seems as everyone is either in the planning stage of a walk, or already completed it. We have Alan with his LEJOG walk, not forgetting he will be doing two crossings of Scotland; one for the TGOC and one to get back on the West coast to continue the LEJOG. Darren, Andy & Pod Bob are preparing for thier TGOC, & I think AktoMan is looking at Wainwright's C2C. Back in September I looked at three possible walks for this year; TGOC, C2C or the Dales Way. I think it was a bit fanciful of me to do the TGOC or the C2C. So its the Dales Way; 80 miles, Ilkley to Bowness and should fit in a week. Not as big as the others but still needs planning. 685