Inversnaid Bunkhouse
The bunkhouse is a converted church, with a mezzanine floor, which is the dining room/common room. As part of the conversion they have retained the stained glass.
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iPhone
West Highland Way Day 3 – Sallochy Bay to Inversnaid
The rucksack is heavier today, as we are carrying our overnight stuff, food and equipment we need for tomorrow, because we are not having our case transported today (it costs too much to ship it to Inversnaid). It was because of this extra load that, at the last minute, I decided to bring and use my Golite Jam backpack. The Jam has a very good compression system so it makes a very comfortable daypack for the other days. The large external pocket is particularly useful for my waterproofs, sitmat and gortex gaiters.
To start the walking day we have a taxi ride to Sallochy Bay, where we finished yesterday – I know exactly which rock I was sitting on when the taxi came and that is my starting point for the day.
No 3G signal today so the post is being made from the Inversnaid Bunkhouse, where we are staying tonight. It is a converted church. The room is OK, but we have not yet found a kettle so it looks like if we want a cup of tea we have to buy it – we will ask later.
The walk today was great – we followed the banks of Loch Lomond all day, so it was an easy 10 mile jaunt, the long days start tomorrow. There was plenty of sun today and some great looming clouds and mists.
Tomorrow we needed an early start but breakfast does not start until 8am – we will have to manage.
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West Highland Way Day 2 – Drymen to Sallochy Bay (and back by taxi)
Small change of plan today, we have shortened today’s walk (to save on the taxi fare!) but what it really means is that day three will be a ten mile day rather than seven.
The accommodation here in Drymen is very good, we have a three bedroom apartment, all the bedrooms and living room have flat screen TVs, the kitchen is well supplied with tea,coffee, milk and the makings for breakfast. There is central heating, and two shower rooms. Richard has done really well to find this place. It has allowed us to sort ourselves out following the first days shake down walk. (Parrot count so far zero – see our Coast to Coast blog.)
We booked our taxi back last night with a local taxi company here in Drymen.
Before starting we watched Jensen Button win the Japanese Grand Prix.
The Pottery pub where we had dinner last night – the photo was shot just before setting off today – blogging in the rain again, at least for the first part of the day – that’s my positive attitude showing through.
The path was a stream.
Lunch – no raincoat and a great view.
I even wore my sunglasses!
We are now waiting for the taxi – middle of nowhere and a strong 3G signal – so I’ll publish this now.
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West Highland Way Day 1 – Milngavie to Drymen
Train into Glasgow, we need a cashpoint and a pie shop.
Is there an app for removing rain drops from my photographs?
The Start at Milngavie
There is no missing the start (or the end) of the West Highland Way.
It looks like today is the perfect day to use my water tight case for my iPhone, so I can blog and take photographs in the rain.
The rain has been patchy and mostly light (no over trousers needed) so it has not been hard to deal with. On the plus side there has been some nice light to photographs the woodland colours.
By 2.30pm the rain had stopped and I had my rain coat off.
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WordPress iPhone App Updated
The WordPress app for iPhones updated today and it has been greatly improved.
The page/post editor now has formatting buttons and adding a link is also on a button – in the previous version I had to google to find out how to add a link. Although the editor is not wysiwyg – it just puts the code on the page for you – it is easy to pick up the basics. Still no horizontal line though.
The app now includes a reader for WordPress sites you follow and shows the “freshly pressed” WordPress blogs.
One thing that has not changed, is that images are always inserted at the end of the post – it would be better if they were inserted at the cursor – it would save much cutting and pasting.
I use the iPhone app not only to write my blog but to write posts and maintain pages on the Octagon Technology and the National Hamfest websites.
am really pleased with this update – and it has come just in time before I go and walk the West Highland Way when I plan to blog a lot, so family and friends can see out progress. A little formatting will help the clarity of the posts.
Other engineers and staff at Octagon use Android phones/WordPress apps to contribute to the site – when I am back at work following the National Hamfest I will check out whether their apps have also been upgraded.
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Pulp Fiction
Back in the summer I wrote a post on eBooks and readers. Using the iPhone app Stanza I went online and found a free pulp science fiction eBook – The Penal Cluster by Randall Garrett. For the original article look here.
Now I was impressed with the cover, and Jeremy was not impressed that I chose a book for it’s cover! Well I have now finished the book and I can say it was a good pulp fiction read.
It had all the elements, a hero, space rockets and ray guns, a heroine in distress and even “aliens” taking over the Earth… and at the end there was an unexpected twist to the plot.
So if you want to try out a free eBook I’d recommend this one.
A wide selection of pulp science fiction is available today, because being mostly copyright expired, it has found it’s way into electronic and online libraries and collections. I am not sure that when the authors wrote these “pulp” books that they would ever had believed that copies of their work would be so widely available in the 21st Century.
These collections also include many classic science fiction works from authors you have heard of, HG Wells and Jules Verne to other not so well known authors. Try Olaf Stapledon’s “First and Last Men”, as recommended by Amy H Sturgis. Tony Smith at the StarShipSofa has podcast a number of copyright free stories from Gutenberg in the past as well as being the home of Amy’s “Look Back in Genre History”.
The new podcast Journey Into… is replaying old radio shows, covering a wide variety of genres, all of them “pulp”, as well as new recordings of both older and contemporary stories. I was listening today to a Hornblower story, that was first transmitted on the BBC in the late 1960s. It is the mix of material that Marshal Latham is promising us that has quickly made his podcast one of my favourites.
Haglofs Watatait Mobile Pouch – Test 2
Here is a test with the iPhone in the Watatait case.
Not in the case.
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