Burns Night

Today is Robert Burns Day. Appropriate as I seem to be in the middle of a Scotland phase. Got some music called Spirit Of The Glen - sort of bagpipes play famous tunes with modern arranged accompaniment. I'm sure some people I know would dismiss it as rubbish but actually I think it's quite nice. There's a track called Journey To The Line by Hans Zimmer from the film The Thin Red Line which is a really moving piece of music.

Anyway, other Scottish influences at the moment? I'm still reading the book 'The Munros and Tops - A Record Setting Walk in the Scottish Highlands' by Chris Townsend. This is a diary of a walk he did in 1994 around all the Munros and Tops in Scotland - that's basically all the summits above 3000 ft. He was 'out' 118 days, although I should criticise him a bit for having the odd day when he went home, or maybe for getting help from his partner, or maybe for cycling certain bits, but hey. He did it. At the moment I am reading about him doing the peaks around Glen Shiel.

I should probably go and do some of these Munros myself - I think I've done 5 before - at least that I have some memory of. One of the ones I have done is Schiehallion - quite a famous one. Amazingly, I've never been up Ben Nevis. I must put right this scandalous fact this year. Note to self!

Last night I started reading 'Jamaica Inn' by Daphne Du Maurier, but I only got to about page 5 before falling asleep... I guess I'm now in the middle of about ten books, should probably finish some of them....

So...

In any case, 20 days have gone by since the last post, but I'm still thinking about the same thing! A Four Points Tour seems much more exciting, mainly because I don't know anyone who's ever done that - whereas I do know someone who's done LEJOG - Matt of course. A route from Land's End to John O' Groats via Lizard Point, Ness Point, Ardnamurchan Point and Dunnet Head will be something like 1800 miles. I've planned it out for 29 days - with say 2 rest days that makes a nice round month. It also seems that I can stop off at friends and relatives along the way, where I could leave boxes of stuff to replenish supplies, etc etc..

Still haven't decided what charity to do it for though..

The further thought occurs that I probably don't want to start this journey with little knowledge of what my body will be like after the 20th day... so I should plan an at least 3 or 4 day outing under the same conditions - maybe a tour around the peak district or something... lake district and back or something... well, there's another trip to plan :)

LEJOG planning started...

So, among other things, today I have begun the task of planning my LEJOG expedition, which may take place this year, time and money permitting..

For those who don't know, LEJOG means travelling the length and breadth of mainland Great Britain, from Land's End to John O' Groats, which I intend to do by bike. On reflection, the choice of these end points seems rather odd - Land's End is neither the most southerly (Lizard Point) or the most westerly (Ardnamurchan Point) point of mainland Great Britain, and John O' Groats is neither the most northerly (Dunnet Head) or easterly (Ness Point) point. But it is nevertheless a long journey - around 1200 miles by any sensible route (see below). There are many decisions to be made, especially so as I will be doing it solo and 'unsupported'. I have been pondering some of these issues today, and using the wonderful Memory Map to explore route possibilities, as well as trawling the Interweb for other peoples' accounts.

Having dispensed with the idea of simply doing it by the quickest and simplest route possible, I think I have two choices: either I do it using as little road as possible, or using as much of the National Cycle Network as possible. Planning out routes using these as conditions gives me about 1200 miles by the first option and 1330 miles by the second. There is a trade off with time as well - off-road miles are quite a lot slower than on road miles, so the off-road option will probably still take longer than the NCN one, even though the latter is 130 miles farther.

It is pretty clear that I will do it on my old mountain bike, mainly because it is the only bike I own that you can put a rack on - if I use either my road bike or my new mountain bike, I will have to carry everything on my back and a seat post bag. There is something to be said for that - weight of bike, handling etc. - but I'm not sure I can travel light enough to do it with just a small rucksack. It may also not be good for my back... I'll make a list of minimum stuff and see what it looks like :)

I should probably aim to do this for charity - get sponsored and so on, but which charity.. Another decision!

Camping is out - have to carry too much stuff, so it'll be (S)YHA and B&Bs - good because then at least I get a decent night's sleep every night...

Anyway I'm sure there'll be a lot more talk of this!

Other things I've done today - mainly watched football - Leeds beat Man Utd in the FA Cup, and I watched a new adaptation of Poirot - this time they did Three Act Tradegy - pretty good.

We have had snow on the ground all day - and temperatures never above freezing - the heating is on constant, expensive but necessary!

New Year, New Blog!

Let's see how long this lasts... ;)