What actually happened

It was quite a trip!

 

I was not able to do all I hoped and planned for, which comes as no surprise to me!

 

What was a five day walk turned into a three day one. The reasons for this are varied, but they all come down to the fact that I had blisters which made walking somewhat painful. And no longer fun.

 

	Map of the walk
	Click here for a larger version.
	And here for a huge (10MB) version

 

 

The main factor was the weight of my pack. This increased the load on my feet and hastened the wear and tear on them. I had decided to take a lightweight tent and sleeping bag, just in case I got caught without any accommodation. But then I added a stove, cooking equipment and some food. Individually all these items are lightweight but it all accumulates and soon the pack becomes difficult to lift.

 

The annoying thing is that I could very well have done without the cooking equipment. I made tea a couple of times but I was never in any danger of going to bed without a meal at some auberge or other. I did use the camping gear, but I wonder that if I did not carry it, I would have had a lighter pack, been fleeter of foot and able to walk on to the next overnight stop and get a real bed for the night. We will never know.

 

All my other arrangements worked very well. Pride of place goes to my GPS - I didn't lose my way at all! I had scanned the maps of the route - they form part of the illustrations on this web site. These were calibrated in OziExplorer and waypoints along the GR4 marked. These were transferred to my GPS unit - a Garmin Etrex Vista - which also had the relevant maps from the Mapsource Roads and Recreation disc loaded. The latter was not very useful as there are so few roads in the area I was walking in.

 

If I was doing the trip again I would use many more waypoints so that I always had at least 2 waypoints on the screen at all times - one behind me and one in front. But that would just be making things even more easy.

 

I used the GPS throughout the walk so I have a continuous record of my progress. And thus, by coordinating the times of my digital photographs with the GPS track record I know exactly where each photograph was taken. I used this to produce a record of my route on GeoBloggers. You can see it at . You may have to zoom in to see my route in all its glory.