Last week I sent the material for the new edition of The End to End Trail to Cicerone, and I hope it will be coming out towards the end of 2019. In the meantime the previous edition has about sold out I think, although there will still be a few about in the shops. I’ve re-walked all the maps in the book, updated every map, and rerouted in places to take advantage of new options and avoid some problem areas. There’ll be some new photos too, replacing some of the old ones. In the meantime, if you’re thinking of an End to End walk in 2019, you’ll have to get hold of a copy of the old guidebook. It’s out-of-date in places, and many details have changed, but there’s not many places where you’ll hit problems because of this: when a stile has been replaced by a gate you’re still going to go the right way, or at least I hope so.
I have put together a set of notes summarising the significant things that have changed since the old guide was published, and you can find them all on this website here, or by pulling down the menu above. If you’ve got any other queries please email me (andy at longwalks.org.uk) and I’ll do my best to answer them. I’ll be brightening up this website shortly by adding some photos, and at some point I’ll integrate the material from the old website into this one properly.
My next bit of guidebook work is not entirely unconnected. Together with Jay Wilson, the creator of the walk, I’m working on a guidebook to the John O’Groats Trail, which is a new long distance trail from Inverness to John O’Groats. If you want to walk this in 2019 you can get hold of a draft copy of the guidebook from Jay. Just visit the JOGT website for details. A lot of the JOGT really is new, in that there was no path there at all in some places before Jay started work. Now you can walk it all, and much of it is waymarked. There are still a few fences to cross and burns to ford, and one horrible steep descent to negotiate, but one by one these obstacles are being dealt with by Jay and the teams of volunteers working on the Trail.