Introduction

We will be walking for 350 miles through Scotland raising money for DC Boxing Club in Cambridge. The journey will take 21 days through towns, mountains and valleys.

The journey will start on 25th August from just outside Glasgow. The route follows the West Highland Way along Loch Lomond, past Glencoe and up Ben Nevis. Then the Great Glen Way is used to travel alongside Loch Ness into Inverness. From there the route travels down through the Cairngorms to eventually end up in Aberdeen.

We aim to take a couple of blogging solutions, so that we should be able to keep you updated via this blog along the way (phone signal and battery life permitting). We’re also hoping to get hold of something that will log the journey for us automatically, so we can check exactly how many miles we do.

We’ve started organising through things but still have a long way to go. Neither of us have camped out in the wilds for this long, or covering this distance, so there are still plenty of technical issues that we need to address.

The next priorities for us to sort are:

  • Kit – most of our kit is not suited to the potentially bad conditions in Scotland, nor is it the most lightweight kit for carrying 350 miles.
  • Route and mapping software – at the moment we’re looking at using Anquet or similar to map out most of the route, with Harvey or Trailblazer guides for the first two stages of the journey.
  • First Aid – It’s probably a good idea for both of us to go on some sort of first aid course. Just in case.

The idea of spending 3 weeks walking through the hills sounds serene. 16 to 20 miles per day sounds almost easy…

The reality is day after day of trudging up and down mountains through potentially treacherous conditions, having to carry food, water and shelter, with no organised support other than each other.

One thing is for certain though, it’s going to be an absolutely awesome adventure!

We hope you enjoy reading about it, and please, don’t forget to donate some money towards DC Boxing Club

– Heley and Phill