Never mind, it was a solid walk with 6kg carried and lots of variable terrain, pretty close to an average challenge day in terms of distance and elevation gain. Time taken was about 5 hours including breaks for an average over all pace of a little over 4kph. Weather conditions were pretty much ideal although it started getting warmer after midday.

1. Trailstar has turned up and has been seam sealed. Still waiting for the Oookstar, that should arrive around March.

2. I’m rethinking footwear. The Salomon Synapse WP have failed a couple of points: Laces are not repairable in the field, or replaceable with normal laces; and the ventilation is quite poor resulting in stinky feet after only a few days to a level that I have never suffered before. I’ll be wearing gaiters for part of the trip, and I cannot discount the possibility of lace failure around the front attachment hook (it hooks onto the laces) My Fastpackers are too worn to complete the trip, so I need some new shoes. I’m waiting on a pair of Salomon Comet 3D GTX which I think fit the bill. Will update in due course.

3. Route has been vetted and fine-tuned to vetter’s excellent suggestions. I have to send in the final updated route sheet, but otherwise it’s all done.

Edit Feb 7th: Updated Route sheet submitted.

4. Europe airfares are booked. Still working on the post-challenge arrangements, hire cars and intra-Europe flights.

5. Still mulling over camera gear for the Challenge. Plenty of time yet.

6. Preliminary arrangements for food is done. I will have 3 pickup points: Drumnadrotchit, Aviemore, and Ballater.

7. January was a wipe-out for walking training with just 70km completed. February has been cooler and 40km completed so far.

2012 walking statistics

258 Activities for the calendar year, totaling 1491.5km Average per activity 5.8km, average per day 4.08km. Pretty much the same total result as 2011 but the monthly mix has changed. August was a bit of a wipeout with only 5 activities, time spent in the snow doesn’t count as walking. January 2013 has been low on distance due to the extreme temperatures at the beginning of 2013 bringing the average distance per walk for this month to only 2.3km.

If the weather doesn’t settle down I will have to attack the rowing machine and the gym to maintain fitness for the TGO Challenge.

It’s almost complete, barring things I have forgotten. Weight looks to be around 6Kg plus camera, water and food. Last Challenge I was over 8Kg, so good to see I will have to carry less.

-> Still to add: Camera kit, Toilet Kit, Sundry toiletries, Maps, Drybags.
Have yet to decide regarding camera. Maps will be A4 photocopies, double sided on hi-rag paper.

-> Still to decide: Notch or Trailstar
I’m keen to use the Trailstar, but I don’t have the inner for it ordered yet. Sean from Oookworks has had some dramas and a move of location recently. Apparently, he has no internet connection which explains why I haven’t heard from him. Plenty of time to spare, but I don’t want to let this slip too far.

Edit: Heard from Sean. There will be no problem getting an Oooknest in time. Whew. Bivvy option deleted, I’ll leave the Notch option for now, but I think the Trailstar is the way to go.

Edit: Trailstar arrived today 14/1/2013

-> Still to decide: Sleeping Bag WM Ultralight or ZPacks.
I’ve basically decided to take both, but carry one of them. I will be meeting up with family every 3-4 days and will swap between them based on the temperatures encountered and the places I will be camped. The WM is probably overkill, and the ZPacks is marginal if the temperatures get cold. I do have plenty of warmwear though to bolster the bag in that case.

Interested to hear comments on the gear list. Moderation is on, but I will approve any comments related to the content (I get a truckload of spam here every day)

Michael

So, it’s on again, and I am busy sorting my route planning. This time, things have been a lot quicker to get started – I already have the maps required, I have already been through the learning curve of route planning in the UK from a distant country. I’m using several very useful web resources, notably the excellent online track mapping site Grough Route and the also excellent side-by-side map and google satellite imagery site Where’s the Path

I expect to have my route sorted before Christmas.

I have started a TGO Challenge 2013 page to hold preparation details linked up in the header and will endeavour to update it as I go through the preparation process.

The camera was made in England by The Houghton-Butcher Mfg Co Ltd, London, and is identified as an Ensign Carbine No 12 Tropical Model. At this point, it would appear that the camera is from the mid 1920′s. It seems to be unique when compared to other Tropical Models I have seen cataloged on the web in that it has a timber frame, seen below on either side of the brass frontplate. Most were brass, or other metals, some were leather covered.

Carbines came with a variety of lenses and shutter mechanisms. This one is adorned with a Carl Zeiss Tessar 12cm f4.5 lens, and a Compur 1-250 Shutter.

The casing bears the signs of use and age, although it is in good order and is operable. There is a missing screw on one of the bellows support arms that would be effecting the alignment of the lens to the film plane when unfolded, not impossible to fix. The bellows is in remarkable condition. The simple construction and mechanical design has stood up well for a camera that is heading towards 90 years old.

298 activities since Jan 2011, totaling 1611km. That’s an average of 5.4km per activity, and including all days regardless of whether I walked or not, that’s 3.9km per day average. Total ascent of just under 80km (79.8) although it may well be more than that as something went awry with the GPS height logging on a couple of my multiday hikes.

Strictly speaking, this includes Jan and Feb 2012, which account for 208km – 4.2km/day, slightly above my daily average to date…

So, in the absence of a useful working binary, I decided to download the C source file and compile it myself. Apple distributes the development environment for Mac OSX (XCode) at no charge, how hard could it be?

Well, it turns out it’s not that hard, just complex to achieve, and many false leads to follow that might deter you in the process. I followed a few myself but as it turns out, if you happen to find the right places to look it will come together pretty easily. The object of this blog entry is to point out one way that works (I’m sure there are others) I’ll make this point form with minimal in depth explanations. If you get stuck or need more clarity please leave a comment. (Comments are moderated, but I do check them so don’t be deterred)

Lets get to work:

1) Install XCode.

On Lion, XCode is no longer on the install DVD, it’s in the App Store as a free App. Just purchase it as you would any other app using your AppleID. Be warned, it’s a fair size download! Also, on Lion Apple has changed the install location, older versions were installed in /Developer, this version is installed in /Applications as XCode.app
Unless you want to keep the old versions in /Developer (if you even have them) you can delete them to save disk space.

2) Start XCode and accept the license agreement.

Self explanatory.

3) In Xcode, install the commandline tools.

Go to the XCode menu, select Preferences, then ‘Downloads’. Select ‘Command Line Tools’ and click the ‘install’ button.

Note that you need an Apple Developer ID to download the command line tools. This is no big deal, and won’t cost anything. You can add the DeveloperID to your existing AppleID. The download will prompt you for your DeveloperID and forward you to Developer registration if you don’t have one. Once you have registered and confirmed the registration via the email that Apple will send you, you will need to restart the Command Line Tools download from within XCode as above. Once installed, head to the next step:

4) Download and install MacPorts

The MacPorts Project is an open-source community initiative to design an easy-to-use system for compiling, installing, and upgrading either command-line, X11 or Aqua based open-source software on the Mac OS X operating system. If you’ve played with Linux, much of the content of MacPorts will be familiar to you.

The Lion MacPorts installer is here. Download the installer disk image and run the installer from the disk image.

5. Use MacPorts to download, build and install dcraw, including dependancies required to run and build dcraw.

If all goes well, this is the last step. Open Terminal and type:

sudo port install dcraw

You will be prompted for your password and then the process of downloading and building dcraw will begin.

Depending on the speed of your computer and your internet connection, this will take a little while, but at the end you should have a functional and up to date dcraw installed at /opt/local/bin/dcraw (v9.12 at this time)

HTH

Waitpinga was the first campsite with actual rubbish facilities so far and I took great pleasure dumping my rubbish bag and the few pieces I had collected along the trail. Filled up my water from the large masonary water tank and then I was off again a bit after 8am to walk the sandy track out of Waitpinga. It was mostly gently uphill and arrived back at the cliffs via scrubland and erosion reclamation areas in about 3-4km. Awesome views into the sun of King Head and West Island each time the trail re-emerged onto the cliff tops. I had a break at a full size Picnic table installed by the Friends of the Heysen in memory of Peter Hill, a past official in the club and maintainer of this section of the trail.

King Head and West Island from the picnic table

From there the walking was easy and pleasant. Mostly downhill and breaking out of the scrub a few times for magnificent views of the southern ocean rolling onto the dark slabs at the base of the cliffs. The scrubland was replaced by grassy hillsides as the trail approached King Head and King beach where the Heysen Trail leaves the coast and heads inland.

West Island and Cliffs

At this point, I left the Heysen and continued on the coastal track and into Encounter Bay and Victor Harbor stopping at the first restaurant I came across for a feed of fish and chips on the beach washed down by a cold beer! Stayed overnight at the Victor Holiday park where my tent looked quite out of place nestled in between massive caravans and motor homes!

Dinner at the Hotel Victor where they redefine value for money pub meals. The roast of the day, (small) was yummy and more than I could eat and only $14.

Bus home in the morning, thus ending my first Heysen interlude.

Trip Stats:
Day 1: 16.55km, 696m Ascent
Day 2: 19.49km, 801m Ascent
Day 3: 22.21km, 662m Ascent
Day 4: 18.75km, 387m Ascent
Total: 77km, 2546m Ascent