Friday, September 21, 2007

After a week in bonnie Loch Lomond…

Bog bog rock bog stream stream bog bog…eek!

Next time I go walking I shall take a dictophone to record the soundtrack of the day. In its absence, I'm afraid you will miss out on the eccentric bursts of song, stupid jokes and other jollities that filled our days on the munros. But the above gives a rough idea of how those days panned out. In four days we climbed six munros, got cold, got wet, almost got sunburnt, fell over, went up gradients as steep as 1:1, mended our tent with a bin liner, and discovered that tesco caramel wafers aren't nearly as good as Tunnock's. We also played a lot of racing demon. But most of all, we will remember the bog :)

1 comment:

Tiger said...

..went up gradients as steep as 1:1

I think that would be possible in France, but not in Scotland, unless you're an insect with sticky feet, or using a rope!

Continental gradients (usually given as percentages, e.g.. 100% rather than 1:1) express the height gained as a proportion of the horizontal distance travelled (tan^-1 grad) whereas the system used on UK signs measures the ratio of ascent to distance along the inclined path (sin^-1). So 1:1, British-style, would be a sheer vertical ascent. The French 1:1 on the other hand would only equate to a British 1: (sqrt 2) or about 1 in 1.4, corresponding to a slope of 45 degrees. That's probably quite steep enough!

I agree that there's no substitute for genuine Tunnocks.