Back in July, after a day out walking in the Wye Valley I had got home, dumped my gear and soaked in a nice hot bath. I thought about transferring my route from the GPSr and my photos to the camera as usual, but the GPSr wasn’t there. I thought nothing more about it. The next morning I felt it was time to sort out the track, so went looking in the usual places for my GPSr, but no luck. Then there was a mild panic. My wife had the washing machine on and I could hear a thumping sound being emitted from its drum. The cycle had just finished and there in the pocket of my shorts was my beloved CSx. The battery compartment had been pulled off, two of the screws which held front to back were missing and the thing was waterlogged. It was dead, or so I thought.
I placed it lovingly on a sunny windowsill and then set about the difficult task of replacing it, as this model had recently been discontinued. I had never had any interest in the newer Garmin products, as I had researched them from release and always felt they were inferior to the CSx, but now I would be forced to chose one. I went for the Oregon 450 with the Discoverer 1:50K OS maps of Great Britain. The best price was £315 at Wiggle, who are also an authorized dealer of Garmin products, so I went ahead and bought it.
I used the product over the next 10 weeks, taking it hiking, Geocaching and even up Ben Nevis, so it had a good work out. Read the next post to find out what I thought of it.