Tringa wrote:The difference between the two norths in the east of the UK is a little over two degrees and in the NW it is well under one degree. I doubt anyone needing to walk a bearing could manage that level of accuracy.
One of the more useful navigation tips I've picked up over the years is the '1 in 60 rule' - a bearing error of 1 degree equates to a lateral position error of 1 metre for every 60 metres travelled. It's not precise, but is close enough for small errors and short distances. You'd need to walk 6km (just shy of 4 miles) to pick up a 100m error, and in that distance you'd usually expect to find some kind of terrain feature that would keep you on track - at least in Scotland, anyway!
It's more use, in fact, to know how far to aim off in bad visibility in order to know that when you hit a burn, the bridge you want is somewhere to your left.
The real issue with walking on a bearing, of course, is that it's all too easy to stick merrily to 250 degrees on the compass, but all the while slip gently to the side down a hill or get blown sideways. At least we don't have to deal with the hills moving around underneath us, like sailors do.