Contact Me: Hoping to walk LEJOG Spring 2010

Subject: LEJOG planning
Posted: 19 Mar 2010 12:21 pm

Hi Gary.

Looks like things are going well! I saw a Milk & More float in my street this morning as I walked to the Tube station, and I thought of you. Fantastic that they're covering all your costs! Well done.

The conversation about 3G that Ken's referring to is here:

www.landsendjohnogroats.info/guestbook/viewtopic.php?t=2829

Your iPhone should work anywhere there is a phone signal, though outside of 3G and EDGE networks, it will fall back to GPRS, which can be pretty slow to download web pages. It should work, though, particularly if the web pages you're posting to are content light, and if you find Wifi you can use that, too. As an iPhone fan, I think you've made an excellent choice!

Looking forward to seeing the blog; don't forget to post a link here once it's up. Enjoy the training!

All the best,

Mark

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Subject: iPhone
Posted: 19 Mar 2010 7:22 pm

I bit the bullet and bought an iPhone and I'm really pleased with it.
All my maps at 1:50,000 for less than £100 thanks to Outdoors.
GPS so I can never get lost(!) - though it devours the battery
My whole Pink Floyd collection
CAMRA Good Beer guide to tell me where the nearest pub is

I'm half expecting to find an App that will turn it into a tent

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Subject: iPhone
Posted: 21 Mar 2010 1:49 pm

Thanks for the advice guys. It seems pointless taking a PDA on the walk when my iPhone will be going anyway, the only real issue was needing frequent opportunities to charge it up, which I have now addressed.

The built-in GPS, compass and mapping functions on the iPhone will obviously be useful, but if anybody knows of any other apps that will help me in any way while I'm walking please let me know. I'm going to store detailed notes of my intended route in the phone. As far as I can see there are no apps out there that are good enough to let me ditch the OS maps completely.

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Subject: A couple of apps
Posted: 21 Mar 2010 7:27 pm

I recently reviewed a couple of apps on my blog, including CAMRA's "Good Beer Guide". The other app, Outdoors, offers 1:50K OS maps spread over 13 regions.

In the last few months I've added so many apps to my iPod Touch that I'm seriously considering leaving the netbook at home. The problem is I've found no way of uploading Routes / downloading tracks from my Garmin GPS using an iPod touch. I'm also not sure about uploading photos from my camera.

Good luck with your preparations!

Cheers,
Steve
http://lejog2010.wordpress.com/

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Subject: iPhone keypad
Posted: 22 Mar 2010 2:12 pm

Hi all.

The only thing that I would use a PDA/netbook for that an iPhone isn't much good at would be writing... and the iPhone keypad is no good for anything other than shortish emails, really. There are iPhone keyboards on the way:

http://mashable.com/2010/01/08/iphone-keyboard/

but I don't think they're quite there.

As soon as they are, though, I'm going to ditch my Palm PDA in favour of the iPhone. Can't wait!

(I should also point out that there's an excellent iPhone app available at www.tubewalker.com/iphone - though perhaps I'm biased! )

Mark

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Subject: Thanks guys.
Posted: 23 Mar 2010 6:27 pm

The CAMRA guide is alreay installed, thank-you for an excellent recomendation there Steve. Outdoors looks interesting too, a bit on the pricey side I suppose, but it could be the app I've been looking for that completely eliminates the need for paper maps. If possible please let us all know how you get on with it during your walk via your blog.

The iPhone's lack of a keyboard is obviously a bind. However, my writings are likely to be less extensive than others here and I have 2 years experience of typing out many e-mails and text messages on the thing, so I have decided to make do.

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Subject: iPhone maps
Posted: 24 Mar 2010 4:14 pm

I'm also tempted by the Outdoors maps. Those paper Explorer maps weighed a ton!

Though I do have a lovely collection of maps that contain my entire route, step by step, in blue marker pen. That's almost worth the expense and weight alone...

Mark

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Subject: Outdoors App
Posted: 24 Mar 2010 7:43 pm

"bit on the pricey side I suppose"
I've just bought the South West App for £15 and I can get from Lands End to Tewkesbury on the one App. How many paper maps would I need to buy to cover over 300 miles?
And there's always a lovely little blue dot to tell me exactly where I am.

Another useful App for anyone doing the South West Coast route is UK World Tides 2010
(£1-19) which gives the tide table for over 400 UK ports, as well as sunrise, sunset and moon times.

Anyone recommend any others?

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Subject: Maps on the iPhone
Posted: 25 Mar 2010 4:52 pm

I needed 19 1:25,000 maps to get from Land's End to Tewkesbury, so that's probably about ten 1:50,000 maps. Looks like the app wins hands down on price.

I much prefer walking with the 1:25,000 resolution, though, so until they're available on the iPhone, I'll probably stick to paper maps. Paper maps are also better for working out what you can see from the tops of hills, as you can see so much more than on a small screen. Still, that's just a niggle really; bring on the 1:25,000 versions and I'll finally make the leap to digital maps!

Mark

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Subject: 4 months to go update
Posted: 20 Apr 2010 2:12 pm

Hello all,

I'm pleased to report that preparations for my walk are going well. I have purchased nearly all my kit, the only major items left to buy are a decent set of lightweight waterproofs and a headtorch.

While I'm confident I have a good base of fitness I do realise that I need to get used to walking while wearing my fully laden backpack. So far I have been for 4 practice walks between 7 and 9.5 miles each, all after a full day at work. Over the next 4 months I will gradually increase the practice distances. I carried my rucksack loaded with all my kit plus some tins of food and books (15KG) to more than make up for the items I haven't bought yet and the weight of food and drink I will need to carry on the road. I'm delighted to report that I've thoroughly enjoyed the walks so far and suffered no ill effects. My only worry at the moment is that I need to learn to slow down my natural brisk pace, my average speed measured by my Garmin GPS device has been between 3.7 and 4.0 mph on undulating routes. I will be happy with a 3.0mph average when I'm on the road for real.

Some final decisions are still to be made about parts of my route through The Midlands, I'm spending much time route-planning and doing virtual tours using Google Steetview (highly recommended). As discussed on the West of Bristol thread I'm strongly considering walking without any paper maps and relying solely on my iPhone.

4 months from today I start walking, I cannot wait to get going!

Gary

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