Final preparations

Tomorrow I'll be off to catch the ferry to Newcastle. Nervous ? Yes.
My backache is gone but I haven't carried a rucsac the last two weeks.
One parcel (Glen Nevis YH) has arrived, the other one (Dalwhinnie Bunkhouse) is still lost in space.
Looks like I'm going to have to buy some extra food and batteries and make a huge detour to deliver them myself prior to the Challenge. Thanks to the Royal Snail Mail.

The weather will be cool, wet and windy in the northwest and the Cairngorms are still extensively covered in snow. My route goes over the southern edge of the Cairngorms and the webcams near the Glenshee area (Cairnwell-Cairn Aosda-Glas Maol) don't show much snow. Perhaps I'll be lucky ?

Good luck to all Challengers and a safe crossing !

Challenge gear

Until now I've seen only two gearlists for this years Challenge. There have been years everybody was blogging about their gearlist complete with milligrams but lightweight gear is normal and accepted nowadays. Tarps, trailshoes, helium filled backpacks : you name it, they take it.
I do try to replace 'heavy' items with lighter alternatives but you won't find me sleeping underneath a tarp. A Dutch woman is running (!) LeJog at the moment and had a very unpleasant encounter with a toad..... crawling on her face in the middle of the night. The tarp was immidiately exchanged for an Akto.

The total weight of my rucsac, including 4 days food, will be just a little bit less than 13 kilograms (28.6 lbs) : the lightest I've ever had for a multiday backpacking trip.
I will not bore you with milligrams.

Theo's list :

North Face Lodestar 70 rucsac

Hilleberg Akto

Mamut Butterfly sleeping bag

NeoAir Xlite matras

inflatable pillow

Campinggaz Bluet micro stove

Campinggaz CV300

Pan

potcosy pot

potcosy pouch

Pocket knife

spork

walking poles

Satmap Active 10 gps incl ortlieb a6

6 AA batteries

4 AAA batteries

Geko 201 gps

Compass

Whistle

Small torch

headtorch (Xenos)

Samsung photocamera incl. ortlieb a6

ortlieb mapcase with a4 printouts

survival blanket

drinking bottle

bottleholder

p-zipbag

crocs

foldable sitmat

Karrimor drybag 2lt

Bever drybag 20 liter

Sea-to-summit drybag 20 liter

Sea-to-summit drybag 20 liter

Sea-to-summit drybag 2 liter

Eagle Creek chestpouch incl.plastic karabiners

snowgrips

Personal care

First aid kit

Tick remover

Paracetamol

Toothbrush

Toothpaste

Earplugs

Toiletpaper

Sportstape 3 m

Showergel (mini bottle)

Spare glasses with case

bandage

binbag

duct tape

Iron wire

Clothing etc.

j-cloth

flanel

4 pair of socks

2 Odlo underpants

Fleece hat

3 magic towels

North Face goretex trousers Paramo Alta Jacket Scarpa sl3 leather boots

1 synthetic longjohns

1 Icebreaker Skin 200 t-shirt 1 Icebreaker Skin 200 long sleeves 1 Icebreaker midlayer 3 handkerchiefs windstopper gloves 6 pair plastic gloves outdoordesign gaitors Food and drink

3xadventure food en 1xknorr dried pasta 16 mueslibars breakfast/lunch cereals  with white raisins and 70% chocola incl.ortlieb a4 15 teabags

Personal

Mobile phone ID, cards, drivers license, money, etc. Diary + pen I've sent two parcels with food and batteries to Fort William and Dalwhinnie. In 5 days Í'll be taking the ferry from IJmuiden to Newcastle. It's getting close now.

Disaster strikes....almost

Last saturday I was writing down Challenge phonenumbers at the dinertable. As I stood up I realised I couldn't get my back straight up. Moving was difficult and painfull. I've had this lower backache in the past and more severe also but never at such an inconvenient moment.
In this state I wouldn't even be able to walk one kilometre, let alone from westcoast to eastcoast through Scotland.
Normally it would go away with time but time is the one thing I didn't have. Only 17 days before taking the ferry to Newcastle !
Yesterday I went to the physiotherapist and much to my relief things are going a bit better. Some more massages and I'll be up and running, ahum, walking again.   

Pre-Challenge practice

I was able to get 2 days of work so I could do some proper training for the Challenge. Of course when I say 'proper training' I mean walking a reasonable distance on the flat instead of going up and down. There simply isn't much up and down in The Netherlands.

Last monday my wife drove me and the dogs to the nearest forest and kicked all of us out of the car. I left my wife, confusing the dogs whom to follow but after a couple of minutes of running back and forth they stayed with She Who Has To Be Obeyed. Traitors !

Bussumerheide

Two weeks ago the minimum night temperature was as low as     -10 C. but on sunday the max day temperature reached an incredible +23 C. At 8.45 am on monday it was already warm and feeling very humid. My rucsac contained most of the things I will be taking with me on this years Challenge.
A nice variation of wood and heath made for good progress in the morning.

Ancient neolithic burial hill - 4000 years old

At 11 am it started to rain but nothing serious. It was dry again at noon.
A nice and dry looking tree trunk looked like a suitable spot to have lunch. Ten minutes later a woman passed and asked if I hadn't been troubled by hornets. The treetrunk hosted a hornets' nest the previous year. Luckily for me there were none left.

great spot for lunch - a (former) hornets' nest

After going through more wood and some estate farmland I reached the former airforce base Soesterberg. This base has lost its function and buildings and runways are now being demolished to return the area to nature.
It also marked the end of walking in peace and solitude. The machines made a lot of noise and a busy A-road and motorway had to be circumnavigated.



German storage bunker from a 37mm Flak site

At 4 pm I reached my intended camping spot although it took me another half hour to locate the spot precisely. Wildcamping is illegal in Holland but there are some places where 'wildcamping' is permitted. This way of wildcamping is called 'paalkamperen', pole- or post camping. The only utility is a pump for pumping up groundwater by hand. The distance covered was 32 km.

'Paalkamperen' near austerlitz

At night the air was still and my Akto had considerable condensation on the flysheet.
I must admit it has been a long time since I slept in a small tent and I'm not as 'bendy' as I used to be.
The NeoAir Xlite airmattress was comfortable and didn't make much noise when turning from side to side. I also used an inflattable pillow, one with a hollow in the middle. It deflated a little during the night and that caused some necktrouble the next morning. A solution is needed before the start of the Challenge.
The forest had been full of singing birds the previous evening and the singing started again at the first sign of dawn. An early breakfast led to an early start at 7.30am. The route back home was slightly more to the west and 1km shorter making a total of 63 km in 2 days.
My feet felt good although the last 5km on tarmac wasn't too pleasant.


A beechlane, almost a mile long.





I had to go to work again on wednesday but felt wonderfully good and strenghtened.

Let's hope the infamous third Challenge day will be equally good.

 





A bit nippy for the time of year

It's a bit nippy of late but no complaints from me. March 23, 1916 was really nippy with a max of 1.1 degrees Celsius.
It's the wind and lack of sunshine that makes you put on two sets of cloth. Last night the effect of windchill was near minus 20 C. and I still don't complain. Britain has much worse weather conditions at the moment. Snowdrifts 15ft high in Cumbria, cars buried in snow. Extreme windchill on Cairngorm, Scotland, of -26 C. with gusts up to 100 miles per hour (160km/u). Walking on ridges and high terrain would be impossible.

Watching several webcams the West Highlands don't seem to have much snow. At least no more than usual at this time of year.
47 days from now I'm going over Ladhar Bheinn and Luinne Bheinn.

diy pot-cosy and bag-cosy

 For the TGO Challenge in May I made my own potcosy and a bagcosy. I used radiatorfoil, ducttape and aluminiumtape. The bagcosy has an 'envelope form' and can be closed to retain heat for a longer period. The bagcosy has a wider base so the 'boil-in-the-bag' meals can stand up inside. Don't want to spoil it on the tentfloor, do we ?

The potcosy has a double layer, a base and a top, to be able to seal of the cooking pot as much as possible. There's an open space where the handle of the pot comes out. The potcosy is for meals that are made..... in a pot, yes. After bringing 500ml water to the boil I switched of the gas and put the pot into the cosy. Twenty minutes later the meal was still piping hot so the test was a great succes.

The bagcosy weighs 23 grams and the potcosy weighs 35 grams but will save me a lot of gas.

 

 

 

 

 

Snow for the seventh time this winter. I want to speak to the manager !

While it rained for 24/24 hours a couple of days ago and we've seen the digital mercury hit 16 on the thermometer a few days before that it's now snowing again in the Netherlands. The north and the south have a considerable amount of snow again but so far where I live - the middle - the streets are still black. Windchill is minus 15 at night however.

Preparations for the Challenge are going according to plan except that I'll probably won't be able to find the time off to do a two day walk and do some (illegal) wildcamping at night.
Eight weeks from now I'll be leaving for Scotland. Why does that feel so close ? I get this odd feeling there's hardly enough time to do the things I want or must do. I know there is, it just doesn't feel that way.

I've made a potcosy and a bagcosy, that is a cosy for a pot and a cosy for 'boil-in-the-bag' type of food. I'll post some pictures soon.
Overall weight of my rucksack, including food for 4 days, will be 15 kg.