For those who keep asking, I think we are not too far off. Bob’s editing seems to be getting towards the end

I’ve spent quite a lot of time here looking at mapping solutions for Mac OSX desktop environments but I haven’t looked much at Mac/phone mapping solutions.

Background

Not that long ago we had these new GPS systems. They were quite basic. They would give you a grid reference and would allow you to upload basic routes from a computer. They would also allow you make a track of your route as you walked. I still have a basic Garmin Gecko that I use when in Scotland. I use it to simply get a grid reference.

The we saw the emergence of PDF sized GPS machines that could display topographic maps that were loaded by a solid state expansion card.

And now we have maps on smart phones. If it isn’t here already we are fast approaching the point where we need only carry one machine with us on this hills.

MObile mapping solutions work best when working in tandem with computer mapping on your computer. Topographic maps are available on the iphone from a number of places including from mainstream companies such as Memory Map and Anquet. However, Memory Map is not available for Mac OSX. Anquet is now available but the Mac version is a port by a gaming company which is receiving very mixed reports from users. Routebuddy is the only truly Mac-native product. Routebuddy is a small UK company which is slowly building a functional and quality product. At the heart of the Routebuddy approach is the use of raster graphics for maps, rather than the bitmaps used by competitors. On my large desktop screen the quality of the Routebuddy graphics really show even if the product isn’t yet the ‘finished’ article. So, how does Routebuddy look on the iphone?

Routebuddy Atlas

The Routebuddy Atlas app is available for free download from itunes. It used maps bought from the Routebuddy store — more about that later.

First things first. Load up Routebuddy on an iphone 3 or 3g and you are presented with stunning map graphics. These raster graphics really seem to get the most out of the phone screen. Load up Routebuddy on an iphone 4 and you are presented with something that is even more stunning. The iphone 4 has a screen with four times the resolution of most smartphones. Apple reckon that the resolution is as good as fine print on paper, and they’re not exaggerating! Every now and then a product or combination of products gives you an insight into the future. Routebuddy Atlas on the iphone 4 is how mobile mapping will look way into the future!

The initial screen is simple and to the point. In the main window a list of maps loaded onto the system. Simply double tap to load the map onto the screen and to see those graphics.

At the bottom of the initial screen are three simple icons, maps (in which you are in), GPS and Settings. GPS simply carries a GPS function. You can upload routes, track routes and so on. Start tracking and the system will give your location, your speed of movement and altitude. This section is easy to use if you’ve ever used a GPS, indeed, it is easier than many GPS machines.

The final icon for Settings has a range configuration options which are important for obtaining maps (see below)

Using Maps

But it is the map screen where will spend most of our time.

As I said the quality is superb. The system very quickly finds your location and the electronic compass accurately points towards either true north of magnetic north. Zooming in and out os done by the usual pinch gestures. The screen can be used in landscape or portrait modes.

A few small icons at the bottom of the screen are easy to grasp. One simply locates your current position and two others allow you to turn tracking on or off and add waypoints. Two others take you to a list of waypoints and zoom out to show the whole map.

Just above the icons is displayed the reference to either the middle of the screen, your location or the selected waypoint depending on how you are using the system.

Usually this reference is in longitude and latitude. But tap this and you can run through a series of other options which include OS grid References; in effect you can change the default to OS references (in the UK). I mention this because Routebuddy for MacOSX presently does not work in OS Grid format (although this blog has been told to expect these in RB 3 which is out late summer/autumn).

A search field allows you to search for any location on the map. This function works well and quickly.

The Maps

Topographic maps are available for the USA and the UK at the moment. The UK maps are from the Ordnance Survey and include the 1:50 Landranger and the 1:25 Explorer ranges. These can be bought as individual sheets, as National Park collections, as regions or as the whole country.

As the computing power of smartphones increases we’re going to be able to store a lot of maps on our phones. My iphone 4 (32 gigs) now has the full 1:50 map of Great Britain loaded on to it, running in memory and not on a solid state card.

Maps are bought from the Routebuddy Store and you can use the map on both your desktop Mac and your iphone.

However, there is slight limitation is moving maps to the iphone (at present).

Maps are loaded from your computer to phone over a wifi network — so you will need wifi to do it. If you don’t have wifi at home you will need a laptop and some wifi spot to have a crack at it.

To transfer the maps you have to go to settings on the phone and enable server mode. This gives you an IP address of the phone. Go back to the desktop and connect to this IP address. Instructions for this are given on the Routebuddy site. On a Mac system this is easier than it sounds using two finder windows or a program such as Pathfinder. Instructions are also given for transferring the files from Windows to the iphone. I guess you could buy the maps and download them to a PC even though you can’t use them on the PC itself! But manly here we are talking about Macs.

The phone software does have a button to allow you to buy maps directly from the store to your phone. However, this is currently disabled but I can assume this feature is coming shortly!

Non Topographic Maps

The Atlas program comes configured for the OpenStreet Map system (and Open Cycle and OPen Piste maps). These work from a web server rather like Google Maps. The street map has far more information on it than Google Maps and its inclusion is a real bonus.

Summary

If you use Routebuddy on the Mac Routebuddy Atlas is a simple addition. The quality of mapping on the phone is the best by far. However, Mac using hillwalkers have been put off by the limitations of the desktop software which doesn’t think in OS Grid or display height information. However, these features will be coming to Routebuddy 3 soon.

When Routebuddy 3 is around Routebuddy Atlas will become the natural choice for mapping with Apple systems. As it stands at the moment the iphone app is superb and just waiting for the desktop version to catch up.

Routebuddy

Ouch !!!

Most days when I go walking I have a plan. And usually the plan works out OK. But not always.

Yesterday saw me getting up at 6.00 am to have a good crack at a long walk. Things began to become unravelled when I got to Shrewsbury Bus Station. A little notice said that buses might be running late because of road works. But they could have told me that this might mean 50 minutes late!

Still, I was walking on Wenlock Edge by just after 10.00. The edge is a long ridge that runs from Ironbridge to Craven Arms in South South Shropshire. It is a historical place. Man has inhabited this ridge for thousands of years, and I like the notion that I’m walking through time. Wenlock is also an important place in geological terms and if you’re ever in Craven arms then it is well worth visiting the Secret Hills Centre.

Once the climb has been made up to the ridge this is a straightforward walk. The first section is through a delightful mixed woodland of oak, beech and some native pines. This is no forestry reserve in the Welsh manner but a wood that reminds me of Scottish Caledonian forest. I’ve walked this path many times before but I don’t think I’ve ever met another walker. I was on my own again yesterday until I came to the very last section of the walk.

Most of the walk was spent in rain, not particularly heavy but persistent. But the weather was warm enough to allow me to ignore my waterproof jacket, for the most part anyway.

The plan was to nip off the Edge and walk towards the hills of Church Stretton. I realised that I seldom walk these hills in high summer. As a result there seemed to be much more foliage everywhere than I remember, so much so that I overshot my exit by some way.

Sitting down and eating my pie (Turner style) I pondered whether to turn back or not. I’m not good at turning back and so decided just to continue to walk along the rest of the ridge. This is a long walk of about 19 miles but it is reasonably flat most of the way (once you are on the ridge).

I made good time. I entered the last section. Here the path is a narrow one cutting its way through dense woodland. A waymarked track heads off downhill but the intrepid walker can continue in a very quiet section of walk before dropping down on a muddy estate track to join the waymarked route at the road. Off I headed. Not thinking about summer. Soon I was trapped in a mass of overgrown brambles and nettles with no easy way out. Nothing for it to plough on. Perhaps it was not such a good idea to wear shorts!

I cut a slightly weird (or weirder than usual) figure as I made my way to Craven Arms train station.  My Tilly hat was all over the place and my legs smeared with rather impressive amounts of blood! At the train station the local young women kept their distance!

The train was late. Eventually it came and dropped me in Shrewsbury. The connecting train to Birmingham was late. I was home late, too late to take in the planned 3D version of Toy Story3 at the local IMAX.

On the train from Craven Arms a bunch of walkers got on at Church Stretton. Through the corner of my eye I thought I recognised on. It was Challenger Sam Hackett. He moved through the carriage to quickly to be caught. Perhaps, If I’d been on the Mynd we’d have bumped into each other. It’s a small world!

I got home to shower and dace around in agony from the cuts on my legs. They were as sensitive again this morning!

So, in summer, think of the brambles!

Nothing went to plan. It was very painful in places. But it was still a great day out!

I’ve just received an email fro Orla Cummins who works with Irish Ferries on their marketing campaigns. As part of their campaign a number of small You Tube videos have been produced extolling the virtues of hillwalking in Ireland. There are also videos on food, hospitality and other outdoor pursuits

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZG0vczVwtDY&feature=channel

Emily Rodway continues her good work as the new TGO Editor with a must-read piece in the current edition written around a major interview with Jim Perrin. Go get a copy1

Whoaa … I here some of you shout. I know! A lot of you never read Jim Perrin; he’s too impenetrable! And, I know for some people Jim’s enough to put them off buying the whole magazine. But — and it is a big but!

Jim is a fine writer. His biography of Don Willians is masterful. And Jim’s regular columns in the Guardian Country Diary slot always delight, indeed, I think these may be better than the TGO columns. But to the point. Nobody connects emotion and landscape like Jim does. In this regard I don’t think he has a peer.

Like many I used to pick and choose Jim’s TGO pieces, skating over them more often than not. And then one month I Found myself reading the most remarkable thing I’d ever read in an outdoor magazine. It was a piece Jim had written following the death of his wife. It was amazing and incredibly moving.

This piece switched me on to Jim and I really began to understand what he was about. I took time to sit down and read his contributions; I like the fact that they need serious reading. And then, not long ago, Jim suffered another loss, that of his son. Again this lead to some incredibly moving writing. Anyone coming to terms with a recent loss would (I think) be comforted by Jim’s writing. And then Jim was diagnosed with terminal cancer but fortunately for us he’s hanging on.

Jim’s latest book has been fashioned out of loss. I’ve not got a copy yet but Emily’s article gives you a flavour of the wonderful book thatI’m sure West: A Journey Through the Landscapes of Loss will be. Actually, it is out now in hardback.

Unsure? Well you don’t have to buy the book (yet). Just get a copy of TGO and read this article; I think it gives you a flavour of what the book is all about.

There’s no doubt that adversity brings the best out of some writers. And Jim Perrin is one of the very best.

 

David McDowell (see France from top to bottom) has got me thinking. What would be a good route through France?

France is a country that offers some stunning walking along well marked routes; it’s not all just wine and baguettes! Here you have the dramatic mountains of the Alps and the Pyrenees, but also the hills of the Massif Central and the Voges, the wonderful undulating country of the Perigord and the lands of the Lot and the Tarn — the Aveyron is a real gem of a place. Getting closer to the sea there’s the Ardeche and the Cevennes. And France also offers some stunning coastal walking.

There are some problems though. I’ve heard of people cycling from top to bottom and taking boats through the rivers and canals from the Channel to the Med. But I’ve never heard of anyone walking it before. Route planning would be critical. Those great expanses of lowlands —kilometres of wheat fields that seem to go on forever — may be welcome when your are riding a bike, but they might be just too much on foot during the heat of summer.

Fortunately the French have done a lot of the planning for us. For example, the GR 36 footpath starts at Caen on the North Coast and winds its way down to the Med near Narbonne, by way of Normandy, Le Mans, Saumur, Angouleme, Perigeux and the Dordogne, Cahors and Carcassone. That would be some walk. You could branch off at teh Loire and head South East through the Limousin, the Massif Central and connecting onto the Stephenson Trail through the Cevennes to the Camargue. That would be a fine trip as well.

Starting would present a challenge.  Calais might seem obvious and a route from here would you through the picturesque country of the North including the lovely Somme. But Calais means a big chunk of extra walking and probably sends you on a path that is far too easterly, unless you choose to walk through Paris.

My favourite start would probably be at Cherburg. Cherburg is not the most attractive of towns and tourists tend to race away from it and down the peninsula. The peninsula, though, is a lovely place and would be a great start to a long walk, whether you took a coastal route or walked through the middle.

There’s almost too much choice here to make route plotting easy! Ideally, you’d want to criss cross from west to east and back again.

Weather would also be a real challenge as the walk would take months. Winter weather can be pretty horrible in France and you probably wouldn’t have to finish walking through a cold, wintery Languedoc landscape. Perhaps, this alone means that this would be a project best tackled in stages over a number of years.

But above all else I can’t get away from the thought that one route wouldn’t be good enough. I reckon you’d have to do the walk (at least) twice to do the country justice. Add in (a some would) tours of famous vineyards and things get even more complicated.

A real challenge this and one that I’ll come back do occasionally.

It will be fascinating to see the route that David comes up with!

While looking at the Cicerone website I found this in their FAQ section:

Q: Is Paddy Dillon Irish?

A: No, he’s a Lancashire lad! There must be some Irish way back when, but not in the recent generations he says. In fact the publisher is more Irish than Paddy is!

This made me smile, not least because it gives you a feel for the nice gentle humour that is often associated with the company — and with Paddy of course.

I’m glad to know that Proprietor Jonathan Williams has more Irish blood than Paddy.

Personally, I’m trying to work out whether Paddy is actually human! I heard a rumour once that he came to earth on a meteorite; but that can’t be right!

Cicerone have a clutch of interesting new guide books out, or just about to hit the book stores. There’s the first English guide to walking in Southern Catalyunya which should be interesting. And I notice they have a guidebook ready soon on the Pacific Crest Trail — which will no doubt be a weighty tome!

But it was NOT The West Highland Way that most caught my eye. This is the latest offering from resident eccentric Ronald Turnball and it is published on September 15th. If anyone can find a better alternative to the WHW it’s Ronald! It seems to be a book of day walks and 2 day stretches, but each of them is designed to be an alternative to one of the WHW stages. Sounds like a good idea to me!

Cicerone Books

Discussion about back problems crops up on these pages quite regularly, and not just because of my recent back problems. Over the years the issue of back pain has come up in discussions about walking poles, in posts and threads that look at the Alexander Technique and so on. The threads on these posts are usually quite lengthy. As TGO vetter Pete Goddard said to me recently there are few of us hikers that don’t have back problems from time to time as we get older.

In one recent thread Colin Griffiths recommended Sarah Keay’s Back Sufferers’ Bible and encouraged me to go and buy it off Amazon. After a couple of weeks reading I can see why Colin thinks so highly of this book. Look at the reviews on Amazon (and there are a lot of them) you can see that Colin is not alone in thinking a great deal of this book.

Getting your first really bad back is not just painful, it’s quite a perplexing and confusing experience. One of the problems is that most people you talk to have had back problems, or have a family member who has. You hear all kinds of different ‘expert views’ about how back pain is caused and even more views on how to combat it. We’re often into real urban myth territory here.

Finding a knowledgable source of information is quite hard, not to say pretty expensive at times. The first time this happened to me I realised that I needed to find a new GP — mine had recently died. I decided to register with a practice nearer to where I now lived. They insisted that I had a full medical before they admitted me onto the books. By the time they got around to realising I wasn’t going to be too much trouble and arranging an appointment the back was on the mend. So I never went. Subsequent bouts of back problems were milder and I kind of knew then how it worked. I know a lot of people who have had similar experiences. There is just a lot we don’t know.

Take exercise. It’s pretty obvious that exercise is important, especially after the back has seized up and you’re trying to get some movement back into it. But which exercises? Is there a problem in over-doing it? Could you create more damage this way?

Sarah Key takes a very practical approach to the whole problem. the book looks at different kinds of back problem and explains clearly and simply what is going on, where the problems may have come from and how you can combat them. Her message is that even where there is degeneration of the back sensible care and exercise can regenerate bad backs. When you read the text it is quite obvious which bit applies to you. The pain she describes, and the phases that you go through, are so obviously the ones you have experienced yourself that it gives you confidence in the text.

There is a lot of technical stuff here but it is presented clearly and without too much drama or padding. It is a book that I find myself dipping in and out of. Each time I do this I learn a lot.

The focus here is on self treatment, the book is sub-titled ‘How you CAN treat your own back!’ I’m not normally a fan of self help guides, often finding them verging on mumbo jumbo; but there’s no such problem here. If your looking for a detailed explanation of what is going on with your back you’ll probably find it here.

I’ve not spent hours (yet) reading the more medical bits. I’ve been more interested in the exercises that are provided in the book. Key features specific exercises in each section that deals with a specific complaint; she tells you which are the best techniques to use. However, at the rear of the book all of the exercises are bought together. It is quite easy to experiment with the different exercises that are laid out here.

More specifically, Key talks about the problems with exercise as well as the benefits. However, there is encouragement to be bolder than you might otherwise. Take really serious bending like touching the toes and to- swing exercises. Key recognises that many people worry about these but she makes it clear that these exercises have really great benefits if you can deal with them.

To cut a long story short I’ve settled on four or five exercises over the last couple of weeks, including some of the more drastic stretching exercises that I’d been worrying about. I find just a short time with these every morning — and I mean no more than 10 minutes — makes a really big difference. I don’t start the day stiff but with more mobility in my back than I’ve often had when I’ve been OK! Now I find myself quickly running through some of them during the day whenever I feel a little stiffer.

This book has genuinely made a difference to me and I’ve hardly begun to explore the vast part of its content. If you’re struggling with occasional or regular back problems then it’s going to worth your while shelling out the £6 for this. And despite the forward from Prince Charles this really is a no nonsense and straightforward volume.

Thanks Colin!

Four stars!

 

Last year I mussed on a walk that might carry me from the North Coast of France to the South. There’s a great ISGN map that you can buy that shows all of the GR routes in the country. Any number of options exist to do this walk and many of them would be fantastic. I seem to remember having a chat to Alan Sloman about this a few years ago when he was mussing on a follow-up walk to his Lands End to John O’Groats trek.

Anyhow, in comes a comment to the original post from David McDowell whois seriously thinking of taking this on as a project. Am quite jealous. Perhaps I should think about doing this myself, even in stages if necessary. David tells me that the various tourist websites in the Pas de Calais region don’t even mention the existence of any long distance footpaths at all. Which would be a shame.

David lives in the Midlands somewhere so maybe there’s a podcast interview in this. Meanwhile — for all of you Francophiles — I’m going to get the map out and look at some options!