TGO Planning #2

I seem to have done it, or, at least some of it.... I've got the outline of a route for TGO 2009, starting at Glenelg to Tomdoun - after some shenanigans) - to Fort Augustus, part of the Corrieyairack, then the beeline of a slightly distressed bee to Newtonmore, Glen Feshie and over the tops to Corrour, then Braemar, Bill and Stan's, Shielin of Mark, Tarfside, Fettercairn, various roads to Johnshaven.

I'll be camping. I wont be staying in Fort Augustus or Braemar, but merely passing through to visit shops and , maybe partake in a sweet sherry and a water biscuit...and a look around the local Womens Institute nudey calendars...

I need to shorten one day and lengthen the one following it, cos things are a bit illogical in the Moanyleeags...

But apart from that, the route seems to work. Its 192 miles long at the moment. I'll be going through it in greater detail and adding up the ascent and stuff like that later. I'm just going to leave it to cook for a few days first in case I get a sinking feeling about it...

I need to add on an introductory couple of days and sort out a training walk - I usually do a training walk in April of about 4 days. last year I went to Shropshire, this year, I'm intent on South Ayrshire and/or Dumfries and Galloway. Ive made some space to do some other backpacking stuff as well... and I'll be at the English gathering at Snake Pass in March.

And thats about that....

More planning Thursday night, but more of that later.

Pics show various aspect of the challenge incuding adminfairy on a bealach, giving directions to a tea room and some hill or other

Visiting Earby

Later today, we have a another duty to perform. We are going to distribute my mother's ashes in the fields behind Earby Youth Hostel. At the moment, my mum is in a plastic bag and a special "scatterring" box next to the TV. But tommorrow, the Knipe clan gathers and finally disposes of a matriarch. The clan will gather from Cumbria, Durham, Edinburgh, Nottinghamshire and Northamptonshire in a little town that I am fiercely fond of, but which they've mostly never seen.
Everybody will pass grandma's and great-grandmas birth houses and the place where , out of four families in their houses, only one male returned from the battlefields of Normandy and the one grandad./great grandad, severely injured both physically and mentally..... I remember that he showed me pictures of a devastated town and described how he hid behind the remains of a tree at Ypres but still got hit and said " Don't ever get involved in anything like this, lad...." and mended my bike. and told me how to manage walking long distances, and taught me some dog French with a Normandy/Lancashire accent....... and read the pink paper upside down when he was finally beyond reason... I heard from my mum that he'd actually shed tears when he heard that I'd passed my 11+ and could go to Grammar School. I wish they'd told me that at the time. I wonder why I'm thinking more about my grandad than mum. She was a cotton weaver. they were all cotton weavers. She could tell you what the people in the car behind were talking about because all cotton weavers could lip-read.... even through a mirror... Cotton dust hung in the sunlight in our house... I thought everywhere was like that...
Cotton Mills had the same rythm as "Gimme Some Loving" by the way.
All of this later today... at the top of Red Lion Street behind the YHA.
These are my roots...

TGO Challenge Planning #1

Weird Daren's declaration over on his http://www.whitespider1066.com/ blog that he has booked some accommodation for the TGO Challenge next May has prompted me to start thinking about my own TGO challenge route.

I already had a finish point - which may seem, at first sight to be the wrong way around - but last May, whilst on the bus from the Stonehaven International Transport Interchange and Phone Box to the Montrose Metropolitan Passenger Terminus and Bus Shelter that Johnshaven has three things that a finishing Challenger might want.

Thing 1 is a beach. There's not much point in doing a coast to coast walk that doesn't finish at the coast,, and I find that a beach is a very satisfying ending to this venture. Its the salty, wet feet and the tin of celebratory McEwans Export.

Thing 2 is a pub. The one at Johnshaven appears to do food. probably seafood, I shouldn't wonder. This is a good thing, or , rather, these are good things...

Thing 3 Is an International transport Interchange in Johnshaven - just opposite the pub where the buses to Montrose stop. And, as they have to turn around in the narrow streets of Johnshaven, this provides sufficient warning for the walker to finish his pint before leaping out of the pub and being knocked flying by a fish wagon... or, more likely, catching the bus. I did note that last year the bus driver abandoned the bus at Johnshaven and went to check on whether or not his girlfriend was, in fact, having an affair with the Rington's Tea man, as reported by that Sharon who works in Wooollies in Montrose. I don;t know what the result was, but he didn't look too happy when he got back and he drove very very fast into Montrose and didn't pick up any more passengers....**

Thing 4 (Did I say three things....?) Is the fact that the other three things (see above) are all within Challenger hobbling distance of each other - a matter, in fact, of a few yards. Global warming may well soon be affecting the siting of the bus stop, but in the meantime , it's perilously close. Little excuse for missing the bus.

And I have a starting point. I thought (about September) that as this is a coast to coast walk, merely having a finishing point would be insufficient for the organisers to justify awarding me the certificate and badge, so having never been to Glenelg, I thought I'd start there.

Well, as Captain Scott once said to his girlfriend "Why not?"

The I thought, wouldn't it be a good idea to extend the walk at the start by a day or two, just to get a bit more walking in and also avoiding any awkwardness about the fact that Glenelg isn't on a bus route - and I thought what a jolly jape it would be to start at Sligachan and walk to the start...that's the other start, not the first start.

I will draw a veil over the bit in between the start start and the other start and the end - principally because I've no idea what to do at the moment.

I'll probably get an idea at 2:00 am next Wednesday morning and forget what it was by 8:30 due to feeling smug about not being in one of the traffic jams on the radio.

But you'll surely be the second to know about it. (After me....)

** This is not strictly true, but I thought it would make the blog a bit more racy...

The dawn of a new ..er...dawn...

The other day I bought three little LEDs. The total cost of this purchase was £2.99 (probably a severely discounted price) These LEDs are switched OFF by placing a very small, but very strong magnet next to them. Remove the magnet and they come on. Stick the magnet close, and they turn off. The idea is that you can fix the thing to a cupboard door or toolbox or something and when you open the door, the light comes on.

My recent wild snoozing session (in the previous post) was illuminated by these lights by placing the little beggars in one of those little mesh bags you get in boxes of detergent, for putting in with the dirty clothes. I tied the thing to the one of the little loops on the roof of the Akto.

The arrangement weighs 60 grammes.

I won't be using this system on the TGO Challenge as, in my previous eight crossings, I've only witnessed darkness after coming out of a pub, and fiddling with magnets and little nylon bags would be just too technical.

As you can tell, I'm not very busy today.

A little wild camp

Just got back from a really loverly wild camp at Blakethwaite Bottom in the middle(ish) of the Howgills. Its a cracking place for the camping - vast areas of green sward available and a nice view to boot.

I met R Kidd at Cautley and he walked with me from Tebay over Uldale Head and then continued on his way back to Cautley. We did try to launch the toy..er..model helicopter he got for Christmas, but it wouldnt play and had to remain ground-bound

The sun streaming into the tent sheltered me from the nithering northerly blowing up me flysheet and so, instead of exploring The Calf and Simons Seat , as planned, I dozed off in the sun..

Had a quiet, but breezy night with me cheap scotch, a Bill Bryson Book and an MP3 player, only interrupted by a bladder emergency at 3:30 am. Finally came out of the coma at 8:30 this morning and wandered off over Rispa Pike for an eight item all day breakfast at Tebay services.

So, a record 19 hours of not moving very much, other than to eat, drink, pee, or change the page.... There were vague indications of the proximity of the M6 and West Coast main line and Warcop artillery range....

And my LEDs-in-a-bag lighting system worked fabby whizzily more of which, possibly, in another post)