First post!

Hello.

And welcome to my blog. This is my first shot at the blog thing; until now I've always kept my writings and goings-on at my personal website, www.kevinwoods.co.uk. I set this blog up specifically to keep people up-to-date while I go off and do a big walk this summer.

I decided nearly two years ago (yikes!) that I wanted to go and do a continuous Munro round. For anyone scratching their heads as to what exactly that is, the Munro's are a list of mountains in Scotland over 3000 feet. There are 282 of them, and a continuous round means climbing every single one in a non-stop trip. There's also a secondary 'rule' (it's not really a rule) whereby you can do it as a self-propelled trip; walking between every summit and cycling between every mountain group. It's an aesthetic way to do it because by the end of the trip I'll have a big wiggly line roughly the size and kind of the shape of Scotland that represents the journey - not as crazy an idea as it sounds once you see that every mountain range neatly and conveniently links into the next. Though I may have to take that back once I'm slogging down the A9 on a bike in the pissing rain.

The walk will take about 100 days, starting 1st May on Mull, and finishing at the start of August near the Scotish north coast on Ben Hope.

I'll be camping most of the time, linking up the Tops in huge through-routes which span the width and breath of the Highlands. There really are very few areas the route leaves untouched. My last calculation brought the distance total somewhere in the region of 2500km, something I prefer to break down into chunks than look at as a whole: cycling accounts for a solid fraction of that mileage. The length of my daily walk averages out at around the 20km mark; something that should be nice and sustainable while offering more than a little dose of challenge at the same time.

While I've set the blog up for family and friends, I'm aware that some reading it might not know me at all. I started climbing mountains seriously at the age of 15 and have set myself up on a constant dose of mountains in the intervening six years. I've had some solid learning experiences in winter and binged on mountains in the summers (none moreso than last - and I'm still catching up on my website). As I'm based in Glasgow, Scotland, access to the hills is good and every year gets better than the last.

Next week I'll play my last gig before the walk (www.stillmarillion.com). In a few weeks I'll finish university for good and then there'll be little else to do except go up to Mull and start the trip on the island's only Munro, Ben More. Four months from now, I should be standing on Ben Hope on the north coast of Scotland, all going well. (again, yikes!)

The last great task to work out is to make food drops and for this I've spent quite a few days (and more) buying food, buying boxes, writing lists, working out calories, carbs, proteins, and other things with funny sounding names, to finally pack boxes organised in groups of days, ready for delivery to strategic locations across the Highlands. Another thing to be done before I go.

PG Tips make the world go round

Food isn't my strong point (anyone that knows me will testify to this!!), and making sure that I'll be consuming what I need has been just as interesting and daunting a challenge as actually walking the route should be. I'm not sure whether that's the wrong way around or not?!

As part of the walk, I'm hoping to raise £5000 (and more!) for Diabetes UK. My brother Steve was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes ten years ago, and Diabetes UK was the hands-down choice when deciding who I'd like to raise money for. So take a look. I've set up a JustGiving for the occasion: http://www.justgiving.com/KevinsMunroRound2013

From the walk, I'll be blogging as much as I can. Last month, I left my trusty Nokia 3310-clone behind after 5 years and bought a smartphone - which reassuringly got a cracked screen the first week I had it. Nevertheless, I'll have access to emails, Facebook, etc and the only limiting factor will be getting a good enough signal on the hills and conserving the phone's power. For this I've got a solar-powered charger.

Once I'm done, I might also have enough footage to make a wee film. More on that later.

As well as all of that, there is an open invitation for anyone to come and join me for bits. Although I can't do round trips from the car most of the time, it's always nice to go with folk instead of being on my lonesome for three months.

So anyway check back, thanks for having a look and I hope you enjoy the blog.

Countdown to the start: 3 weeks and 3 days.