Tag: Great Glen Way

Plans

Making plans for the summer: Shetland and the Great Glen Way

I’ve been trying to get hold of my friend in Glasgow for a while now. As I’m going up to Scotland for the summer and I haven’t seen her for a while it would be nice to catch up. Also I was hoping to be able to leave my car with her when I walk the Great Glen Way. I could leave it in Fort William or Inverness but as I’ll have a lot of gear in it I’d rather it was somewhere more secure. After several wrong numbers I finally got hold of her this evening.

I wanted to walk the GGW first and then nip back to Glasgow to pick my car up before driving to Aberdeen to catch the ferry to Lerwick. However, because of her shifts it’s actually better to do it the other way round as I’ll get to see a bit more of her if I stay with her later in August rather than this weekend. So tomorrow I have ring Northlink to try to get booked on to the Monday night ferry. It’s usually a 14.5 hr journey but because the Monday night ferries don’t call into Orkney it’s slightly shorter.

It’s not so bad doing the trip this way round as I can do lots of walking in Shetland to get myself trained a bit more ready for my long walk. It also gives me more time to organise things like getting a key for the toilets at the locks along the way. I’ll try giving them a call tomorrow as well and see how much it is to rent/buy the key and how I actually collect it.  

I had been planning to leave tomorrow but as I still have lots to do before I’ll be ready to leave I’ve decided to put it off until Sunday. Which is my birthday. And I like going on holiday on my birthday.

Thinking about reading

Deciding what books to take to Shetland

It’s not long now until I head up to Scotland for my summer holiday. I’ll spend the first week walking the Great Glen Way and then catch the ferry from Aberdeen to Shetland and spend the next 3 weeks there. I’m so busy at the moment trying to get everything at school organised for next year, plus completing my web design course and trying to work on the post grad course, and sorting out umpteen things that keep going wrong in my house and with my car, that I’ve barely had time to think about the summer and plan for my holiday. Luckily, I’ve been to Shetland before so I don’t have to do too much planning for that, but I do still have some things to think about. One of which is deciding what books to take with me.

I’ll be in my car, so for most of time I can carry a good selection. When I’m walking the Great Glen Way though, I want to keep my weight down as much as possible and get rid of things as I go, so I’ll probably just take a selection of magazines and as I read them I can rip out the pages and throw them away.

But what books to take …

Usually I like to read books either by authors from the place where I am or else set in or about the place. Last year I read a lot of books with a Shetland theme, so I don’t have that many left to read. So I have to decide whether to read books –

  • about Scotland in general
  • about wildlife
  • that I’ve started in the past and never got round to finishing
  • from the BBC Big Read list
  • to do with my studies
  • that I think I should have read but haven’t yet.

Maybe I’ll just take a few from each category and then I can decide what I feel like when I’m there.

Coast

Some interesting facts about the Caledonian Canal which I’ll be walking along next month.

Last night I watched an episode of the BBC programme Coast on iplayer. I’d downloaded this one particularly because part of the programme followed the Caledonian Canal and Great Glen Way. The aerial shots were great as I was able to see the paths that I’ll be walking along in a few weeks time. Although I didn’t really learn anything new, it did remind me of a few facts:

  • The Canal was built by hand and was as much a job creation scheme for dispossesed Highlanders as it was to be of benefit to shipping.
  • It went way over budget.
  • By the time it was built ships had got bigger and couldn’t fit along it. So it turned out to be a bit of a white elephant.
  • Loch Ness is deep enough to hold 3 times the world’s population. (Though I don’t know if this was worked out based on the current population or if this is an out of date fact).

I’m sure there was more, but I don’t remember.

Other blogs and websites

Getting inspiration from other people’s websites.

There are a few websites and blogs that I monitor frequently. One is Alastair Humphreys’ website. He pushes the whole motivation thing a bit heavily at times, but he is quite inspirational and I’ve picked up a few ideas from him. When I checked out his site today he had a link to a website belonging to a Swiss couple who spent eight years cycling round the world, more than a year of which was in Japan. This section of their website seemed quite interesting as cycling in Japan is an idea that’s starting to ferment at the back of my mind. Unfortunately there wasn’t a lot of detail, but they do have some amazing photos.

Another website I check regularly is that of the Walking Englishman. He really inspires me to create my own website though I know I’ll never be in his league. At the moment he’s a few weeks in to an 80 day, 1000 mile walk through Scotland and England. Most days he’s updating a blog about it. The update I read today was about the small part of the Great Glen Way he’s walking, including Neptune’s Steps and the route into Fort William. If I walk the GGW in the summer I’ll be doing it the other way round to this, but it’s still more information for me that will help me to prepare.

I do like it when the blogs and websites I look at link in to what I’m doing at the moment.

Alastair Humphreys’ website can be found here.

Verena and Luciano Lepre’s website covering their 8 year cycling voyage around the world can be found here.

The Walking Englishman can be found here and his 1000 mile walk through Britain can be found here.

Julia Bradbury’s Canal Walks

Learning about the Caledonian Canal as I prepare to walk the Great Glen Way.

Julia Bradbury isn’t my favourite walker and I’d rather be out walking myself than watching a TV programme about it. But occasionally she walks in a place I’m particularly interested in and so I’ll download the programme on iplayer and then try to make enough effort to actually watch it. She’s now doing a series on canal walks and the first was featuring the Caledonian Canal and the first part of the Great Glen Way. As this is where I’m hoping to walk in the summer I thought I should download it.

I’ve just watched the programme and I did find it quite worthwhile. It’s useful to see what the places actually look like as then I’ll be better prepared when I come to walk in them. She also gave some history about the canal which was interesting.

The canal was built by Thomas Telford and was on a scale that hadn’t been seen before. It joined up the west coast to the east coast utilising the lochs that were already there. It was the first canal big enough to take more than just barges and was meant to aid fishing boats in their journey from coast to coast as it would save them having to go round the more dangerous coast to the north of Scotland. The canal got public funding which was also a first, because the government were keen to invest in the area to stop migration and encourage business by making the area more economically viable.

The canal ended up being way over budget and taking about three times as long as originally planned. Some things never change! By the time it was ready and functional advances in shipping meant the north coast could be more easily and safely tackled and the railway system was taking over from the canals. So this amazing example of engineering was never used to its full potential and ended up being a bit of a white elephant. It looks stunning though and provides a great walk or cycle and is set to be the UK’s first long distance canoe trail as well. So at least it’s appreciated and well used even if not for the original reason!

Great Glen Way

I’m planning to walk the Great Glen Way and wild camp along the way.

For my long distance walk I’ve decided to walk the Great Glen Way. For it to count as the challenge on my list I have to complete it in one go and not just as a series of individual day walks. I also want to do it whilst carrying all my own gear. As I’ll be camping each night I’ll need to carry a tent, Thermarest, sleeping bag, stove, pans, etc as well as few toiletries and a couple of changes of clothes.

My walking in Exmoor last week was the start of my training towards this. I’ve been worried about my knees and whether or not they’ll hold up to walking consecutively over a week. I’m also not sure if I’m fit enough and strong enough to carry all my gear. I tried to carry a fairly heavy bag each day I walked in Exmoor and after a while I did ‘forget’ I was wearing it. My bag on the GGW will be a lot heavier though and more bulky, so I’ll have to do some training with this too.

My knees are going to be the biggest problem. I had to take two rest days in Exmoor. Each time was after a 15 mile walk with a lot of descent. I’m not too bad on the uphills – I can take short breather breaks if I need them – but the downhills are real killers. I walked slowly and used two poles but still had a lot of pain and swelling and later on stiffness in my knee joints.

One of the reasons I’ve chosen the GGW is because it’s only 73 miles so I should be able to keep most of my walks along it to a 10 mile maximum. Also, the first few days walking will be fairly flat. By the time I hit the descents I should have a lighter pack (I will have eaten away at the weight) and be more than half way there. I’ll take my poles and a stash of ibuprofen and will hopefully be able to complete it.

I’d like to combine my wild camping task with the long distance walking task. There are actual ‘official’ wild camps at some places along the route. Do they still count if they’re official? On some nights I will have to find my own wild camp though, so whether or not the official ones count, I’ll still be completing this task.

I’ve been googling the GGW to try to get as much information on it as possible. I’ve found a detailed blog from a few years ago, some general information sites and a very good photo diary on flikr. The photo diary in particular is good because it means I can see what the various bits of the route look like and how feasible it will be to camp along the way.

Now I just have to do more training, get a map and a guidebook, sort out train tickets and arrange to leave my car with a friend in Glasgow.