RUMBLINGS…

My Old Man’s a Dustman from John Manning on Vimeo.

Hard to believe but there are still some folk out there who just don’t get the TGO Challenge.

With this in mind, I offer you this video snippet from last year’s crossing, when dozens to Challengers, weary after the demanding Cairngorm and Angus Glens sections of their individual coast-to-coast crossings, funneled into Tarfside in Glen Esk, and let their hair down for one night (or maybe two) in the small Freemansons’ bar there.

The guy leading the singing is Mick “Croyden” Hopkins and the chap he’s serenading so, erm, tunefully, is Colin Tock. Among their audience are several dozen Challengers, some on their first crossing, some long-in-the tooth old timers.

I hope this snippet captures at least some of the friendly nature of the event. Challengers old and new gathered together, singing terribly, drinking whatever they can find, and all smiling their heads off. The TGOC is like that for some, for others it’s different – for every Challenger gathered in the bar in this clip, there’s probably another camped in the hills somewhere, enjoying the solitude, the peace of the mountains.

Click the “Read More” link below this line for another video of Challenge foolery!

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Sophie Easterbrook’s about to take her dog, Patch, out for a walk.

Not just any walk however: the route she’s got planned for Patch makes the TGO Challenge look like a walk in the park. Over the next three months, starting Monday, Sophie and Patch plan to walk from John O’Groats to Land’s End, in aid of the the Dogs Trust, reported to be the UK’s largest dog welfare charity. The trust cares for stray and abandoned dogs in a network of 17 rehoming centres - last year it looked after 16,000 dogs that might otherwise have died or been put down.

Sophie’s got an excellent blog about the walk here in which she details her mission to find the best gear for the walk. Bear in mind that this i Britain she’s walking through and while the sun might be shining like a fried egg in a pool of shiny bright blue lard today, she’ll probably encounter everything from rain, sleet, hail, high winds, gales and all-enveloping mists of the kind that make map reading a misery. On the PCT in ‘04 I had similar problems - some days I struggled to decide between the Factor 25 and the Factor 30!

Sophie and Patch will spend most of their nights either in their Terra Nova Laser tent or under a tarp; however I’m hoping that they’ll pop down here for a shower and a tin of Pal as they pass through the Yorkshire Dales – assuming that happens I’ll pop a post about their progress on this site, though that’s several weeks away at the moment. Might even treat them to a lamb Henry and a pint of Thwaites Original in the Craven Heifer!

Sophie’s funding the big adventure herself so that all funds raised will benefit the Dogs Trust – you can make a donation online here and find out more about the trust itself here.

* Photo shamelessly taken from Sophie’s blog page, without permission!

TGO Challenge vid 1 from John Manning on Vimeo.

At the risk of blowing my own trumpet, I’ve just become a Leg-End.

Not a legend, like Robin Hood, Billy Shears or Alastair Hunt, rather, a Leg-End: I’ve just entered that decreasingly elite bunch of TGO Challengers who have completed ten or more coast-to-coast crossings of Scotland, on what is rightly billed as the world’s biggest (and best) backpacking event.

This year being the 30th TGO Challenge, I couldn’t have chosen a better year from the point of view of celebrating my tenth (though there were those whose eyebrows were raised at the fact that to do so meant I’d had to leave Steph and eight-week old Sierra at home in order that I could play out. But as I keep having to remind people, this is how I make my living… work, will it never end?).

My crossing began at Torridon with two days of cruel weather which saw me and most other Challengers take to our foul weather alternative routes from the word “go”, especially after big Bob Ward had been blown in through the hostel door the previous night looking like he’d done three rounds with Mike Tyson (bloody nose, black eye, running mascara…), after having been thrown off his feet by the wind while walking over from Strathcarron station.
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In the latest edition of TGO, I’ve taken a look at a bunch of waterproof breathable jackets, most of which should be suitable for the British hills in summer, and possibly year-round.

In the piece I make mention of SAM, the Swiss-designed “Sweating Agile Mannequin” built by the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Material Testing and Research.

The accompanying clip here (courtesy of Reuters) is posted by way of providing further information. It began appearing on news websites around the time of the ISPO winter sports trade show in Germany, and such perfect timing can’t have been entirely coincidental. 

Forgive me if my tone in the article was slightly cynical… perhaps it was the stress induced by heading into the hills in 15 waterproofs (not all at the same time, that would be silly… I’d've looked like Mnsr Le Michelin) as research for the piece (actually it was 16 waterproofs but one had to go due to space limitations).

 I’d love to hear people’s comments on the clip, and whether they think that SAM could replace the likes of Chris, Judy or myself. Conversely, could we do SAM’s job?