My LEJOG - Day -3

Some years ago I gave up on my blog. It was just too difficult to work on my phone. For a while I used it just to post photos, so that my mom and dad and later just mom could see what I was doing. When she couldn't even see the photos I gave the blog up completely. My hope is that the issues have been resolved and blogging will work more smoothly. If not, I guess I'll go back to just posting to FB.

When I was planning my 2018 Great Outdoors Challenge (Scotland Coast-to-Coast) I was reading a couple of blogs for inspiration. One blog I liked in particular because it was funny and quirky was Alan Sloman's. He had done so many Scotland crossings and also something called LEJOG. I had no idea what a lejog was, maybe Le Jog, as in "my little jog"? Could be. Alan wrote about his walk from Land's End in southwestern England to John o' Groats in northeastern Scotland. Interesting, and not a very little "jog". I soon understood that LEJOG stands for Land's End to John o' Groats, that is, going north. When you go south it's called a JOGLE, John o' Groats to Land's End. 

My approximate route

Over the years I've hiked different trails, but lejog always kept popping up in my head. Last fall I decided the time had come for an attempt. There is no set trail, you decide for yourself which way you want to go. This has meant many hours of planning the past couple of months. To make things trickier I decided to incorporate a TGOC in Scotland. I finally decided on which way to go from the end of TGOC to John o' Groats. For route planning I've used OS Maps Premium, which allowed me to print my maps and export/download all gpx tracks. The last couple of days I've been printing all maps, ~130 pages and 330 grammes. That will lighten, since I can just discard the pages as I go. And now to the packing!