A Roller Coaster walk

The Lands End Trail

Many years ago, while holidaying in St.Ives, Cornwall, I purchased a small walking guidebook written by the owners of a seafront shop making and selling ornamental glass items. As I chatted with the shop owner, she recommended one of the walks in the book which was an eight mile section of the South West Coast Path from Zennor to St.Ives. 'It will take you 4 hours', she said, and as we left the shop I inwardly scoffed that such a short distance would take us that long.

The John O'Groats Trail

Because of a lack of footpaths in the area, most LEJOG journeys end with a horrible slog along the A9 road to John O'Groats. However, recently, the creation of the John O'Groats Trail has meant that it is now possible to cut out most, if not all, of this unsatisfactory ending (or beginning) to most walkers End to End journey. At the moment, the JOGT, which mostly follows the coast from Inverness, is a 'work in progress' but the excellent website has divided the trek from Inverness into 14 stages. Using a green, amber, red, 'traffic light' system, the website advises the current state of each stage and at the moment, there are no red stages and only two or three 'amber' stages. Like most walkers, I have an aversion to walking on tarmac so I will be utilising the JOGT wherever possible and reverting to the A9 only where this new trail is unviable. Photos of the walk can be found on this link http://www.jogt.org.uk/gallery/