Basingstoke Monday 22 June 2015
Start: Basingstoke
Finish: Basingstoke
Miles walked today: 0
Total miles: 1033 (still)
Final thoughts, images, maps and things. Starting with a map of my route, with overnight stops marked:
One reason to do the walk was to lose some weight. I started walking at a little over twelve stones, and finished at a little under eleven. I'll never keep the weight off but will try. My backpack weighed around 36 pounds. Quite heavy, apparently. I was a bit jealous of one or two other walkers who had very light equipment and packs that contained as much as mine but weighed much less.
Here is a video of all the photos I took with my phone:
My phone (Samsung Galaxy S4) was a godsend. It had Ordnance Survey maps for the whole of the UK on it. With the built in gps I always knew exactly where I was. This made walking with paper maps seem very labourious (there's still a place for good old Landranger and Explorer maps and a compass - especially in wild places when your phone dies). The phone camera is pretty good too (edit: for 2015). I had to shoot lower resolution images than I would have liked in order to upload them easily, but generally the images are fine for web use. I could start the day's walk with the battery on 100% and if I was careful finish on about 65% to 70%. I took a back up battery charger which worked like a charm. All I needed to do was keep the phone dry!
Network coverage was pretty good all things considered. Sometimes the phone signal was faster than the wi-fi where I was staying. I even managed to upload HD videos to YouTube on the phone network - impressive, I thought. My only regret is that my Nikon DSLR stayed in my backpack far too much. I did take quite a lot of shots with it but not every day.
If you have read all or parts of my diary I would like to say thank you! Thanks for putting up with my tortured prose. It was all composed and uploaded from my mobile phone en route each day, so that's a bit of an excuse :)
Good luck to you and may the wind be always at your back!
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