A story of two friends who walked the longest straight line in Britain; a story famous for its journey and the places these two friends went around. This adventure took place without crossing a road.

Calum Maclean and Jenny Graham had finished their adventurous 80 kilometres journey at a single stretch. There is a national park in the Scottish Highlands in between. It took both of them an estimate of four days and three nights where they camped in the wild.

 

The longest straight line in Britain

Created by map makers Ordnance Survey (OS) in the year 2018, the longest linear walking route in Britain was the ingenious idea that people came up with. OS experts led out a research based upon the twitter question about the longest straight route across England/Wales/Scotland which can be experienced without crossing a road. The experts found out that the total distance was about 71.5 kilometres from the A9 to the A939, south of Corgaff.

One of the highest points is the summit of Beinn a’Bhiurd which is situated at 1197 meters. It is the 11th highest mountain in the U.K. During the plotting of the space, it was seen that there would be debris and scrambles along the path which could be an addition to the perilous journey if one might want to travel through.

 

The Walk

Both, Jenny and Calum walked the trail with vigour and courage. There were mountain summits, which could be seen from the areas they were travelling. Along with it were countless streams, waterfall bogs, peat hags as well as miles of thick heather.

The total ascent was of 570 meters. Both of them were anxious when they started. The journey was supposed to be tough as it was one of the highest and longest routes which they had to go through to reach till the end. One of the toughest parts was to make it through the thick forest that went straight to the A939. The other parts were easy to go through and offered mesmerizing views throughout the journey.

There were many times when both the friends were confused how to go about it as the compass wasn’t helping much. However, they both stuck to their GPS devices and followed the straight line. While it got easier with the GPS, it was still a bit difficult to manoeuvre through the terrain.

Hard times through the route

The route seemed pretty easy in the map, but it was nothing like that in reality. The friends had a really slow progress as they walked through the trail for almost 11 hours straight and could cover just 10 miles a day. It got really frustrating after a point when you have to travel 13 hours to complete just 13 miles. It meant that they took one hour to complete one mile.

Due to the uneven terrain, there were lot of times when the speed got slow, but gradually the friends picked up the pace. The mountains and moorland were beautiful to look at.

 

Best moments during the experience

There were many moments where we could see nature’s beauty at its best. There was a hidden waterfall and other stunning series of waterfall pools which were tumbling through a gorge. It resembled beautiful steps which were naturally carved.

There also was a hill pass at the Lairig Ghru which had an amazing view. One of the best places to experience the dawn and the sunrise, this place was one of the best areas to camp. As the days went by, there were challenges which seemed to be pretty easy due to the situation that both the friends had experienced before.

Calum said, “Throughout the straight walk, there was a mix of feelings”. They went from feeling depressed, to feeling monotonous at the same journey as well as gruesome at a certain point in the journey. But when they reached the summits, it was one of the best feelings in the whole world which gave them a sense of satisfaction and gratitude!