LEJOG 2017

Day 34: Day 34: danger. Today there was no choice but to tackle the busy A9. There are no more motorways and this A road is the next best thing. One doesn't walk along the side of it like a B road because the traffic is too big, too fast and too damn dangerous. One cuts a slow unsteady path if one is lucky along the roadside ditches which unlike in England are filled with sharp rocks. Or, even less steady, the uneven overgrown verge with random trenches hidden under grass which one falls into if one isn't paying attention. So it's hard going either way (25 miles of pebble beach walking and obstacle course). When luck runs out so does the verge and one is suddenly stuck on a sliver of mud by the white line with fuel tankers, timber rigs and boy racers shooting past your ears - the only choice is to run at full speed to the next safe patch. This was my day all the way from Invergordon to Golspie. The good news is there are only 72 miles until JOG. That makes two heavy days...

Day 33: Day 33: 'I can't stop eating. Full Scottish breakfast this morning, roast beef lunch and fish and chips tonight, plus various snacks when I can fit them in - my Snickers habit is barely controllable' - Richard Fosh (2 x Lejoger, also from Basingstoke). I know what you mean Foshy. Yesterday afternoon I ate a 3 course meal in Johnny Fox's in Inverness, and 5 hours later I bought 2 pizzas from Dominos, ate the entire large one plus a large bar of chocolate on top of 6 or 7 pints. Then a full Scottish at 08:30 this AM, followed by the second pizza, more chocolate and another 3 course meal. I will have cookies and maybe more chocolate before bed. Did I mention recovery and electrolyte shakes? And a can of coke? And 3 more pints? This is the only time in my life where I can eat anything I can get hold of in any quantity and still lose weight. It will be tough to re-adjust. I'll need to start running again...I like Inverness. I left the B&B at 10 and walked ...

Day 32: Day 32: Inverness. I was up at 5:30 and ready to go at 6. I was running low on supplies and there were no shops between Carr Bridge and Inverness so breakfast consisted of a can of coke and a handful of chocolate peanuts. This was not enough energy to get me to the end and by the time I was in sight of the Great Glen and Black Isle I was feeling faint. However that was my only problem today; I walked from Tomatin to the familiar surroundings of Inverness in 5 hours 10, something like 15 to 17 miles. I picked up the last poste restante package and am now in my B&B on Ardconnel Street where I've stayed with Sarah before opposite the Tattoo studio where we've had some work done, and it feels an awful lot like home away from home. Did I mention it's got cold? So - there are only 120 miles left to JOG - 5 days and I'm done. Then I can have a real holiday! I'll bloody need one! DAY 33 Left to right: the Beauly Firth, Inverness, Kessock Bridge, Black...

Day 31: Day 31: down hill. After slaying the last few days I needed some down time; there were only about 32 miles left to Inverness and I'd split that into two recovery days so I wouldn't need a day off and I'd still be ahead of schedule. After Sunday's bruiser of a day I had a long sleep at the hotel, a late breakfast and caught a taxi back from Carr Bridge to the start at The Friendly Haggis in Aviemore where I'd finished the night before. I slowly followed the Speyside Way and Cycle Route 7 back to Carr Bridge and on to Tomatin, often looking back at the mountains, and often being shocked at how stunning and dangerous they are - they are pretty from a distance and lure you in like a trap, easy to get into and hard to get out of. Anyway, I rough camped with a bottle of whisky near the Tomatin distillery and celebrated my good fortune. DAY 32 Tomatin. A note about the blog I must be the only LEJOGer without a smart phone. This means I don...

Day 30: Day 30: The trail is only a finite number of miles. Yesterday (Sunday) was the big one, the day I was most looking forward to: crossing the Cairngorms via the Lairig Gru pass. I knew it would take a long time so I set my alarm for 05:30 and obeyed it possibly to the disgruntlement of nearby campers at Blair Atholl castle camp site. Pack away gear, force down a sandwich and half a bottle of coke, fix up some supplement shakes and armour my feet with gel toe protectors and duck tape. Off at 06:45. Over the bridge; a couple of attempts at finding the start of the trail, and then up into the hills. The landscape changed from forest track to foothills to hillside trail to ford, working its way up heather-clad Glen Tilt (which filled an entire o/s map) to the falls of Tarf, then on to a boggy plain and a long stone track criss-crossing river and stream  to Geldie Burn. Here I had my first sight of Devil's Point a 1000 metre razor's edge of black rock commanding the valley ...

Day 29:  Day 29: Dunkeld to Blair Atholl. Today was a day off of sorts - I started walking at 12:30 and arrived in Blair Atholl at 7 on the dot. Must be 19 or 20 miles? Really straight forward cycle route 77 all the way to 3 miles out where a local gent directed me to an alternative non-B road route which I happily took. Here I have my first sight of the mountains from the ground. I think tomorrow's photos will be memorable. I just have to survive tonight and the pull of the marquee bar opposite the campsite. DAY 30 Pitlochry. A note about the blog I must be the only LEJOGer without a smart phone. This means I don't have the ability to update this blog when I'm on the trail. My support team back home kindly offered to update the blog for me, so this will be communicated by text message and written up on my behalf. It will therefore be brief and without photos. I will expand on this when I get back from my journal entries, dictaphone recordings and photo...

Day 28: Day 28: now we're getting to the business end of this walk. Today I walked from near Kinross to Dunkeld via Perth and Almondbank entirely via national cycle routes, some of which were great, some of which were brown trousers time (I will detail this in my book or if you are going to replicate this route sooner, contact me and I'll try and help). Today's mileage was about 32 in 10 hours 20, good going, I'm happy with the effort. I'm even happier that I have a place to stay tonight and I don't have to sleep rough or in the soaking wet its been raining all day woods. Sarah managed to find me a cheap hotel room in Blairgowrie 10 miles out of Dunkeld; everywhere else was booked due to some damned Highland Games event nearby and its a bank holiday soon...whatever that is; that'll be Day 31. So credit where credit's due Base Camp Director, soon this madness will end and we can go to Torquay x So tomorrow is a rest day, breakfast at half nine, taxi ba...

Day 27: Day 27: 'Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning' - Winston Churchill. My mind was racing too much for sleep so I resorted to ear plugs and a sleeping pill. I woke up at 9 feeling pretty good. I arrived before my poste restante and waited till 12 to pick it up. Then the best bridge crossing of the trip, the middle of the 3 Forth bridges. Because I magiced a 3 day section out of a 4 dayer I'm a day ahead of schedule. This is an advantage I capitalised on today by pushing on to Kinross and Milnthort, by Loch Leven in the Kingdom of Fife. This is beautiful country, like Ludlow and the Marches, like Launceston, like the South Downs and like home. I think I contributed about 19 or 20 miles today to the grand total, which took about 6 hours 35, not a great deal in the scheme of things so I guess this was something like a rest day. The only problem today was my little Silva compass that's got me ...