Maps

 

I said over the summer that I would save my map rant for another time.  And then I never got around to it.  Lucky for you, today is the day.  I love a map.  I spend all winter pouring over maps, day dreaming about the places to go, the things to see.  An atlas is a world of wonder.  A map is also a souvenir.  I keep them to look back on, to see where I went and – in the deep dark unfit months, they remind me of what I can do.  Even the maps that disintegrated on that first wet JOGLE have happy memories.

The thing is, when a map is the one thing you see all day, you get quite attached to it.  You get a feel for it, learn its language as it were.  If all maps were equal this attachment would be fine and dandy.  But all maps are not created equal.  They change in scale, key, language.  What’s on them and what’s missing varies. 

Changing scale is the worst.  When you’ve been with a map a while you are able to work out distances and times without even thinking.  It becomes instinctive.  It’s a relationship.  When you change the map things get all skewed.  You change up and little distances look unfeasible, you change down and you over estimate how far you can go each day or where the best place is for lunch.  If the scale is too big you lack context and road signs just add to the confusion.  If the scale is too small the small road you are on might not even be on the map.

This summer’s maps are dinky little things with massive scales.  Some of them are cut on the diagonal.  I’m not sure how I’m going to cope with that.  As the route is already marked out at least I won’t have the highlighter issues (can’t cope with navigating on normal maps without highlighting my proposed route). I won’t need to write down way points to negotiate a myriad of signs and I won’t be forever hunting a campsite ‘cause they are all conveniently marked.

 

But because of the small scale, the journey is hard to put into context.  It will be 1000km.  I found out on the Donauradweg that this is hard to imagine without seeing it and so take a map of Europe too.  On days when it all seems a bit too far it’s good to see where you’ve been and where you still have to go.  It’s good to be able to plot out the journeys you have done in the past and dream of where you may go, one day.