Even More Notes From The Standby List

I’m going to have to alter the title of this series because me and The Lad are no longer on the standby list. We’ve been given a place.
I have a route planned, although it requires measuring and entering on to the route sheet for vetting. I’ll do this tomorrow, there being a duff weather forecast which is potentially ideal conditions for writing route sheets.
I’m hoping that future TGO challenge postings might be helpful to anybody planning a TGO in the future and, I’ll go through the process stage by stage whenever I get around to doing another bit of the process. Be careful, though, that my processes might not be the same as other people’s processes and developing your own processes for .. er..processing… the ..er….. I can’t remember where I was going with this…

Anyway, what I’ve done is get a pile of 1:50 OS maps and marked the locations of places I want to go to on a large-scale map, and joined up the dots on the 1:50 k maps. This resulted in a route with a middle but no start. Working it to the coast from Glen Clova was pretty simple, but where to start, and how to get there.
Eventually (after almost 20 minutes of hard work), I came up with this route:
Glenelg – Kinlochhourn – Glen Quioch – Tomdoun – Invergarry – Fort Augustus – A Really Wild Bit – Newtonmore – Kingussie – Minigaig – High and Wild Bit – Glen Tilt – Braemar – Callater – Corrie Fee – Glen Clova (for lunch) – Water of Saughs – Brechin – Kinnaber Links.  This should take a fortnight. Amendments may be required should it be too far to Braemar for the second Saturday (for instance)

After it’s been measured and split into handy pocket-sized days, I’ll need to complete the route sheet and submit it.
After that, it will be booking of transport, maybe a bed at the start and writing a food plan. There seems to be several shopping opportunities along the way, so I’m not expecting to have to carry more than 3 days food and a couple of bottles of plonk.
Unfortunately, the dog can’t come, so he’ll be staying on his beanbag for two weeks.
And I need to improve my fitness – I always have to do this anyway, and, this mainly consists of increasingly long walks, up to about 20 miles, and some backpacking trips. And, maybe losing a kilogramme or two of the wobby stuff…