Sunday 20 May 2007

Plastic Fantastic

Bought a copy of Anquet Great Britain (North) a couple of weeks ago for £50, via Ebay. It's a revelation. Despite being IT literate and fond of most things geeky, I'd never considered getting into digital mapping. I like paper maps and have done for as long as I remember.*

I used the Ordnance Survey's OS Select service a couple of years ago and was impressed at the ability to choose an area to centre on. (Cruach Ardrain, in my case)

Anquet's another kettle of fish altogether. Hours of fun! I'd recently bought a decent printer (Canon Pixma iP4300) and a Garmin Geko 201 + data cable (£75, again via Ebay) so I'm now the proud owner of a complete "never get lost again" package.

The icing on the cake is the fact that TFMD has an A4 laminator. Oh, the joy :o)

I now have a pile of plastic-coated A4 maps, comprising my "hit list" of hills that I'll do this year AND, what better reason do I need for finally getting around to making Podcast Bob's "strapamaptome"?

So, when it's pishing down and blowing a gale outside, I can be inside, virtually wandering the hills and having a tremendously good time while I'm at it.

*The Future Mrs Duncan is, at this moment, in Ikea looking for a frame for my Bartholomews half-inch to the mile, map of Skye and Wester Ross. Cloth mounted, it's a thing of beauty.

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