LEJOG Day 91: Dunbeath to Wick: Epilogue Part 2

Weather: Partly sunny with vicious northerly, trying to stop me!

Distance covered today: 32.8km (20.4mi)

Last night's B&B: Inver Caravan Park (£27)

Cumulative distance: 1906.7km (1184.8mi)/ % Complete: 98.4%

GPS satellite track of today's route: Day 91 (click!)

Practical tips for a long-distance walk

Now for the practical side!  I suppose this is the advice I would give to anyone crazy enough to want to do a journey of this duration and scale. Though I did read quite a bit about it before I left, and took the advice of others on board, I also made numerous mistakes, as I’m sure anyone who has attempted such a trip will also admit. The trouble is that it is always very hard to understand the nuances of someone else’s advice, especially if one is something of a novice in the game, which I certainly was.  That of course is a central part of the problem. All the books say that one should not attempt such a walk unless one really is an experienced long-distance walker, but the effort involved in gaining that status may delay a decision to do something like LEJOG until it is too late.  Certainly, in my case, there were numerous excellent reasons for delaying the start, but I quickly came to the conclusion that there would always be good reasons for delay, which would have meant never starting. The inevitable conclusion: just do it!  

So, given a decision to take on an ultra-long distance walk, I would suggest the following: 

Personal preparation and equipment

·         As preparation, do at least two long distance routes to become accustomed to carrying a heavy pack and to wearing boots day after day for long stretches. It will give you a good idea of your capacity. I didn’t do enough. Your feet will take the greatest pounding and anything you can do to harden them will be worth it. There is lots of advice in the literature about ways to harden feet, using alcohol and other potions. It would be wise to follow it.

·         Double your budget!  Using cheap equipment is a false economy. You will suffer the consequences.

·         For any given budget, the order of priority is boots, backpack, jacket and then the rest of the equipment. Spend as much on boots as you can possibly afford, and then walk them in properly. My greatest mistake was thinking that a few weekend walks was sufficient walking-in for my second pair. It wasn’t. And for a really long-distance walk you probably will need two pairs.  Make sure they are Gore-Tex and fully waterproof. I met many walkers whose feet were in a terrible state because their boots leaked, and they weren’t even on anything like a LEJOG!

·         There is lots of advice on backpacks in the literature, but as long as the backpack has an independent frame (i.e. the actual pack is not in contact with your back), and it is one of the high-quality brands, it should be OK. Make sure though that it is the right size, both for the length of your back and in its holding capacity.  Make sure you use it enough to toughen your shoulders and to check that it doesn’t chafe.

·         Jacket choice is crucial and I didn’t get it right. There is a trade-off between waterproofing, weight and temperature. I bought a reasonably pricy Gore-Tex jacket, which wasn’t water-proof enough and was too warm for my needs. The result was that even when it didn’t leak, I was sopping with perspiration which may be worse than just getting wet!

·         Spend a little on proper walking clothes. I was stingy and used ordinary M&S clothing.  I discovered later that there are these days all sorts of special walk-wear, which is quick-drying, impermeable to insects, UV-proof, etc. The quick-drying bit would have helped me greatly.

·         Use a bladder for rehydration. It fits inside the back-pack with a tube to the front and means that water is always easily available. It was one of the simplest and most useful devices on my journey.

·         Once you have packed your backpack, unpack it and remove a third of the items you have packed!  I once read an article by a long-distance walker who shortened the lengths of his bootlaces and the straps on his backpack to cut down on the weight! I am not necessarily advocating going to those extremes, but everything you carry will feel as if it weighs ten times as much after 30km (20mi). I discovered early on that I couldn’t carry my home on my back. I had to be a different person on the road. This involved making difficult choices about what I really needed and what would be just a luxury. I’m still in two minds about this netbook!

·         Compeed (blister plasters) and walking poles: My daughters insisted and if it hadn't been for them, I wouldn't have made it!

Journey Planning

·         Plan your trip in detail before you start. I decided that I would plan the first third in detail and then make the rest up as I went along. I had thought that as I didn’t know what my walking capacity would be when I got fit and strong, it would be inadvisable to plan too far ahead. But when I finally came to plan it, I didn’t have access to decent maps, because I couldn’t carry all of them all the way. I was therefore trying to plan on the basis of Google Maps which clearly aren’t designed for walkers. Hence my route was at times quite eccentric!

·         As it happened, this year hasn’t been a busy one from an accommodation perspective, but even so, many of the B&Bs I tried were fully booked on the nights I needed. I also found that at this stage only a select number have their own websites and there was generally a much bigger selection available in any given town or village. This will probably change quickly, but until then and although I didn’t use them, the very extensive network of Tourist Information Centres is probably the most comprehensive source of B&B information. If, like me, you are reluctant to book too far ahead, then plan your trip in detail and keep lists of B&Bs in all relevant places for later booking by phone.

·         I probably planned in too many rest-days. The advantage is that it gave me a chance to look around the local environment, but at the same time, it was often frustrating, especially where the rest day B&B was distant from anywhere to have a meal, a drink, or get to a shop. On the other hand, they did give me a chance to get washing done and to recharge my batteries. The evenings before each rest day were very relaxing and enjoyable and I did find that the rest days helped me recover from many of my minor aches and pains. On rest days, a decent B&B made a big difference. Though I didn’t do so specifically, it is worth spending more on those B&Bs. 

Electronics and mapping

·         Having some sort of device to connect to the net is now essential. I like the keyboard on this netbook, but perhaps its days are numbered. Even since I started planning this journey, the technology has changed, with all sorts of apps now available for tablet devices and smart phones, and new services such as Ordnance Survey’s “GetaMap” now available at an inexpensive rate. My reliance on 1:25,000 OS paper maps and guide books for the national trails now seems distinctly old-fashioned, though, with Veronica’s help in posting on the maps, it was very reliable and secure. Being lost on the Pennines with a faulty electronic device might have been quite dangerous. The jury is still out on this one!

·         It goes without saying that having a mobile phone (and probably a smartphone) is essential. I found though that the signal in many parts of the more rural country areas was very problematical, and often it was worst in the valleys where the villages are located. Somewhat to my surprise, the coverage in Scotland has been uniformly excellent.

·         Wifi access has been a revelation. I have managed to find a way to get onto the net in every location with only one exception so far, though admittedly I had to use mobile 3G connections in one or two places and had problems uploading big files such as photos.  I had my frustrations with some older folk who had lost their wifi codes, or who just refused to let me get at their routers, but that is hardly surprising. In one or two places, I had to be a little inventive to get connected, such as persuading neighbours to allow me to use their wifi.  I even found that I couldn’t hack into the Youth Hostel Association’s network, which sensibly has been secured against nerds such as me trying to gain access to the web on their system. I used services such as the BT-Fon network and BT Openzone to connect on occasion and through my O2 dongle, I gained access to The Cloud and other wifi networks. All this required a considerable degree of nerdy knowledge and enormous persistence. I probably spent more effort in this area than actually walking!  This whole subject area is developing so rapidly that it doesn’t make sense for me to go into it in any more detail here. Suffice it to say that the net is revolutionising the whole business of long-distance walking.  As elsewhere, it is changing everything and the change is just starting!

·         Equipment takes a bashing on such a long walk. My Garmin satnav machine is coming apart at the seams (literally: the glue that holds the rubber liners in place seems to be liquefying!) and it has developed the frustrating habit of switching itself off unpredictably. My clothes are wearing out and the outer layers losing their water-proofing. My camera has done well, but I managed to scratch the lens early in my travels, so that all of my photos are damaged. My walking poles are on their last legs!  Again, with all of this stuff, it pays to go for the highest quality so that it lasts the distance.

So much for the practical side. Tomorrow I will write about the more personal aspects of my journey and what it has meant to me.  Suffice it to say at the moment that unless I had had the moral support of Veronica and all my friends and relations, no amount of preparation, equipment and knowledge would have been sufficient to make it all possible, let alone enjoyable…..

By the way, if you have been reading any of this blog and would like to stay in contact after it closes, please just email me at kevinslejog@gmail.com .  If you are already receiving emails of the posts, just hit the reply button in your email.  I would really like to hear from you, even if it is only one word, so that I have some idea of how many people were interested!!

This house set the tone for the day. It was tidy, but somehow bland

I tried to get these beautiful little flowers in focus, but was defeated by the howling, frosty northerly wind!

The desolate beauty of the northern coastline as the sedimentary rocks collapse into the sea

Counting down!

This is an ordinary place. Dozens and dozens of small farms, eeking out a living in difficult conditions

A brief patch of beauty: an old bridge across a stream

This house seemed to typify its surroundings. Neat but empty

A meadow down to the sea

Acres of emptiness

A long straight road to nowhere (well, actually to John O'Groats!)

My only interested spectators, cattle by the thousand!  And they were so bored by their surroundings, they found me fascinating!

As did their brothers in the next field!!