National Museum of Scotland
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Scotland
Sunset over Dunbar
The view from our tent. Worth all the rain for this.
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Musselburgh and ADSL
You are not going to get the ADSL tech support story yet as my client has decided the best place for him to sort this issue is to take them to court. (See last Saturday’s post.)
So you will have to wait for the story about how she thought changing my Ethernet cable between the laptop and the router/modem would restore my Internet connection, I had an ASDL signal but no Internet!. There is more, a whole afternoon’s worth of pearls of tech support wisdom.
Now to better things – tea and teacakes (well Jeremy had a glass of girders) in the Burgh Cafe, Musselburgh. A real old fashioned cafe, well worth a visit.
Bridge over the Esk at Musselburgh
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Lunch Overlooking the Firth Of Forth
It finally stopped raining! For all the waking hours since we pitched the tent on Saturday it has rained, soft rain, hard rain, drizzle you name it, we had it! But at about 8am this morning it stopped.
We have spent the morning exploring the coast and stopped for lunch down by the Forth, at Ferry Ness, sitting in front of some World War II beach tank defences.
We also tried some Polish pate for lunch, chicken and tomato, it was very good and so I have added it to my hiking food list. A can of this and two packs of Italian crackers would make a good sized snack for lunch or with noodles an evening meal.
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Trip to Scotland
I am away on holiday, I drove to Scotland this morning with my son Jeremy. We did a Geocache on the way up near St Abbs and had a short walk along the the coast path before heading up to the Dunbar Camping and Caravan Club site near Dunbar.
The above is a view south towards St Abbs.
However getting away was a bit of a rush – thanks to the “tech support” at U***** (more of that story later when I have time to write it up). In the rush I have left my sleeping mat behind – thanks U*****.
(You are not going to get the ADSL tech support story yet as my client has decided the best place for him to sort this issue is to take them to court.)
Better luck was on our side when it came to pitching the tent. We had just got the fly sheet up when the first spots of rain came along. It is a pitch the outer first tent, so we hurried and managed to get the inner up and all the equipment in before the heavier rain came along. I am now sitting in the tent, listening to the rain, drinking tea! Excellent.
Next Overnight Backpacking Trip
I have another trip planned for a couple of weeks time in Scotland. I plan to walk from Grantown-on-Spey to Charlestown-of-Aberlour with an overnight stop at Cragganmore, following the Speyside Way. The family are staying in Aviemore at the Scandinavian Village for a week in August so I will desert them, get a bus to Grantown and then get picked up the following day. My son and I will be camping for the week before and week after the family week – so I will only need to take the backpack with me to enable me to overnight as I will have the other equipment with me.
When I started looking for a campsite somewhere between the two towns I discovered there was a free site at Cragganmore – just to be sure we are going to take a drive out to check what the site is like before I commit to stay there.
Food
Today we were stocking up on some camp supplies and so I also have stocked up on some backpacking supplies.
Following the trip the other weekend I needed to add to the food I am taking
- “No fridge” salami snacks
- Crackers – eight portion packs of Italian Crackers (I will probably carry four packs)
- Nutella portion pack – a bit expensive but convenient and can be used with a pack of crackers.
- Extra bag of cashew nuts
Backpacking Food
Tomorrow I am going to pick up some dried banana flakes, from the market in the Lincoln, for trail snacks.
Fuel
I will be carrying two 100ml bottles of meths, one bottle will cover the evening meal and breakfast, the other will be for hot drinks during the day – I’m on holiday so I expect to stop several times. I will also pack two solid fuel tablets for spare fuel.
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Sat Nav App for my iPhone
Darren from Absolute Electrical Group (http://www.absoluteelectricalgroup.co.uk) recommended to me a free satnav app for the iPhone. Free – it cannot be very good – can it?
http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/navfree-uk-roi/id391334793?mt=8
Navfree for UK and ROI takes a while to download and install as it includes the maps so you can use it when offline. When you first run the program you need to go to the Navmii Store, (the shop icon is built into the app), to download the free postcode database. Also available is a safety camera database – this you have to purchase, but it is a bargain,
I tried the software out this morning on the drive from Aviemore to Carnforth and it did as good a job as my Toyota built in satnav – with some additions.
It’s portable so I can also use it in my wife’s car.
One of the navigation options is UK postcodes (something that the Toyota satnav lacks).
Another navigation option is that you can use Google to search for your destination – this needs a data connection.
Using the software is very intuitive and it only took moments to load my destination and set it to navigate. The verbal instructions were very accurate and there are a choice of voices. The map display was clear and easy to understand with only a glance. There is a choice of 2d or 3G and day or night illumination.
The tracking to roads of the car icon seemed accurate as far as I could tell, not being able to stare at screen whilst driving. The vehicle speed is displayed and this too was reasonably accurate – as was the ETA displayed on the navigation screen.
It was also very easy to add destinations to the Favourites list.
Even after such a short test of the software I would recommend anyone with an iPhone to give Navfree a try. It got mebto Carnforth!
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