About this blog

The journey from John o'Groats to Land's End took place in 14 sections, starting in 1996 (a week or so each year). The idea came to me in 1995 and I completed the British JoGLE Watershed in June 2009.

I was joined by a number of relations and friends from time to time. Most notable among my walking companions were my son Tim (7 sections) and nephews Peter and Jonny.

After walking the first section in 1996 I discovered that Dave Hewitt had already pioneered the Scottish Watershed (to Cape Wrath) in 1987, and had published his excellent account Walking the Watershed in 1994. We have been in touch since then, and he has been a great encouragement.

A simple definition of the watershed is that any rain falling to the left of the path finishes in the North Sea or English Channel, and anything to the right flows into the Atlantic Ocean, the Irish Sea or the Bristol Channel.

I believe that this was the first walk along the full length of the British JoGLE Watershed. I became aware just after I completed the journey that the late Mike Allen walked a slightly different version (from Land's End to Cape Wrath) between 1988 and 1994, so he will have covered the same ground apart from the most north-easterly 220km.

There have subsequently been several walks and publications about parts of the JoGLE watershed, including Peter Wright's 2010 Ribbon of Wildness account of his Scottish section walked in 2005, which has brought the subject of watershed walking in the UK to a wider audience.

I hope you enjoy this blog. I'm planning to publish a full account in 2013/4. A summary of the walk appeared in The Angry Corrie volume 76 in 2009.

Malcolm Wylie.

Monday 1 June 1998

Day 33 - Rannoch part 2

Not a very beautiful photo today, but this gives a good idea of the morass called Rannoch Moor. It was taken from the A Cruach ridge to its north.

Map 41. After a weekend of relaxation in Kinloch Rannoch, we were back on the Watershed by 11am on Monday. The first part of the day was very easy walking along the ridge.

Then we dropped down southwards between a tributary bound for Glencoe to our right, and one bound for Loch Laddon to our left. The crossing was very boggy, as we'd expected, but not worse than the Caithness Flow Country two years ago.

Once over the A82 we again needed to navigate carefully to get between the correct streams, and reached the top of Beinn Chaorach - then across to the West Highland Way at 282511.

[We'd decided that because the next day's walk could be made into a sackless horseshoe, we'd camp at Ba Bridge for two nights - 277484 on map 50. I'd previously camped there while doing the WHW solo, and I knew it was a perfect spot. It even has a family of tame chaffinches. Highly recommended.]
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