Well, no sooner had I found one earth like world than a second came up within only a handful of jumps. This one, in the same sector, is an altogether more appealing planet, with an atmospheric pressure of only a little more than Earth standard and a gravitational field just a little less. Average temperatures are on the cool side, just below freezing, but it's warm enough to sustain proper oceans. An excellent quality find, even amongst Earth like worlds!

Then it was on to Dryau Ausms KG-Y e3390 which I now find is better called "The Dryau Awesomes" and is the site of a Distant Worlds expedition waypoint. There's a tourist beacon with further details but it's hardly needed. An amazing system with a black hole, a white dwalf and a close circle of other worlds orbiting in a fantastic gravitational dance. Not sorry to detour to see this. But I am sorry there was no station, which had been my hope. I've been pulled into a 4000 light year detour with no repairs or means of cashing in at the end of it.

Oh well! I must toughen up and proceed! Now it's down to Athiap where I can rejoin the Blue Trail on my original coreward journey. There I must decide. Forwards or backwards on the trail? Originally I would have liked to see if I could close the gap back to the Beopp nebula where I had to abandon the route. Now I'm not so sure that's wise. These are dangeous parts. White dwalfs and neutron stars are common. My hull is down to 76%. I am tempted to make a run for the core to get repairs, leaving the route closing to be done on the way back.

I don't need to decide just yet. There are more than 70 jumps down before I get to the meeting of the ways. (I underestimated the gap between routes here, it's more like 2500 light years).

Now I am starting to see some systems where others have been after almost 5000 light years of breaking brand new ground. Feels a bit strange! I have to leave a mark on each of these systems, though, so there's planetary mapping to be done when I'm not the first traveller.

Always a precious find and this one with a temperature very close to the home world! Shame its got 3 atmosphere's pressure and 10g to work against. Still nice to see an oasis so far into the black and with so much further to go...

So it has happened at last, the long feared and much predicted failure to find the next star on the trail. Oddly it didn't occur in the Beopp nebula as I had imagined it might. I sailed through that with relative ease. But only a bare two jumps into the zone beyond, the trail, which had been following a fairly clear and fairly straight course, came to dead stop in a swarm of stars at Beopp AT-C C28-202.

And here I was finally and totally stuck. I know that at some point I must have bent rightwards and upwards as I headed towards the next known waypoint where I had originally found an earthlike world in the Athaip sector. But this was a long way ahead (about 4000 light years) and I can't recall exactly how and where I cut upwards. Was it here? Maybe. But prolonged searches on all angles and distances in that general direction failed to find the next stellar stepping stone. I considered whether, in fact, I might have dived down instead, although this didn't match my memory of the route. Again nothing. And nothing ahead on all the reasonable angles. I even searched to the left as well, both up and down. Nothing. But there are so many options here I may have just overlooked it in the swarm of possiblities and it must be at an unusual heading. I even tried straight up. Nothing.

So what to do? I couldn't hang around in this desolate spot forever, over 14000 light years from Sol and 12000 from Colonia. Squadron charts showed that a little over 4000 light years away and high above me (and even high above the galactic plane) is a remote outpost of humanity in the system Dryau Ausums KG-Y E3390. It takes me towards the galactic core and lies not too far (maybe 1 to 2 thousand light years) from that Athiap system, giving me the chance to rejoin the Blue Trail there, by diving back down to the galactic plane. I'll also get a chance to sell my data which is now for more than 10,000 light years of trail and repair my ship. And when I do rejoin the Blue Trail there is an interesting choice to be made. Onwards to the core or try and work backwards for more than a hundred jumps and see if I can connect the original route up more easily in reverse?

Anyway, for now I make good progress up through the galaxy at a bigger jump distance average and without the tedious need to survey every jump. Crossed into the Empyrian Straits and now there are only a little more than 60 jumps to this isolated place. I'll pick up some more Codex opportunities in the new region and I hope my charts do not lie about this far flung outpost!

Progress has been good since my last report, although it continues to be difficult. I reached the key waypoint of a previous Earth like discovery at Gria Hypue on a very gently descending section of the route, then decided to brave the dangers of the Siderial Wall and press ahead to the next system of interest eight hundred light years further and smack bang in the middle of what must surely be the densest region of stars hereabouts, almost on the direct Sol to Sag A line. I have named this system Trinity. Three Earth like words can all be found together. I believe this is not too far from the known landmark of Botany Bay where there are reputed to be four Earth like worlds. It might make an interesting trip to travel between them, but that is for another day or perhaps for some other explorer. Until I cash this mission in, I would prefer not to reveal the exact location of Trinity.

I punched through the Siderial Wall with short jumps, emulating the technique I followed originally and keeping the zoom on my star map tight on the target systems. This worked suprisingly well to limit the range of possiblities, but only I think because I had followed a near arrow straight course and was aided by the knowledge of the location of Trinity, which the route was bound to pass through.

Beyond Trinity I needed to find the left and downwards turn towards the large inky stain of the Boepp Nebula which is visible even from the core, in local centered galactic maps at any rate. Fortunately a remarkably close Earth like had been found not very far from Trinity and not far beyond this turning point. This let me steer where the route changed direction, always a very tricky thing to find and particularly here with stars so thick all around.

Since then I have descended relatively rapidly and somewhat more simply as the stars thin out below the galactic plane, for somewhat more than a thousand light years. I reached another Earth like world in Boepp not too far from the Nebula and one jump beyond is a system I call Seven Weddings. Here there are fourteen major worlds and every one is ringed.

Now about half a dozen jumps beyond that, a region of bright blue stars dominates the sky and the darkness of the Boepp Nebula looms close. I stand at the threshold of what may well be my most difficult navigation challenge so far. I must find my way through here without the benefit of any further landmarks and reach a slowly ascending section of the route rising back in to the dense plane. There is now only one more Earth like between me and the core but that is over 6000 light years away, so no real help and the core itself is still over 9000 light years away. It's been a tough journey. My hull is on 77 percent. It's only going to get harder and slower.

Not far inside the Norma Arm lies the Siderial Wall, a blazing mass of tightly packed suns marking yet another density increase at the heart of this inner spiral arm. At the risk of getting boring, route finding problems just jumped up another notch. However, I'm pressing onwards and still finding the old jump route even if much more slowly. There are just over 100 light years to my next target waypoint and then it can't be far beyond that to the coreward border of Gria Hypue.

At the moment I'm bouncing between Pueloe and Gria Hypue. With luck I may reach the waypoint tonight. There I shall pause to consider the next stage on the deeper and more difficult approaches to the core.

What a tough journey it's been, refinding this old trail! Progress has been very sporadic. The problems I mentioned in my last log entry reached such monumental proportions at one particular crux star where the route diverted upwards and to the right that I was seriously contemplating abandoning the mission there. When I eventually found the 29 light year jump up and away from the line of the previous route, it led to a continuation taking me out of the denser stellar regions and into some relative air. What a relief! Now the route was somewhat easier to find, but still very far from easy. Little lucky runs of two or three stars were punctated by much longer sessions of scanning the map. But so far nothing has been as bad as that upward angled diversion, even though there have been some I've had to sleep on.

Today I entered the Norma Arm at Pueloe DR-N D6-1069. There will be occasions for Codex work again in a new Galactic Region which I shall take as the opportunity arises.

At the current rate of progress the core is a long, long way away and I must take each stage as it comes and enjoy the journey. I cannot help but suspect that ahead must lie a jump I will be unable to find. The next target Earth like world in Gria Hypue is now just less than 600 light years away. Surely that's achieveable now?

Beyond Gria Hypue the following target is not ridiculously far. In fact it's only a little over 1300 light years from my current position and it's a triple Earth like discovery which was the highlight of the outbound journey! This is a waypoint in Blu Ain which I helpfully noted on that first journey was lost in a blizard of stars close to the galactic plane. Looking forward to trying to find the old route to that one again! The wheels could easily come off this mission before I make it there.

Then at some point beyond that I dive down on a Nebula visit to the Boepp gas cloud. What chances of finding that route direction change? And what chances of getting lost in the Nebula? Really there is no point in even worrying about what comes beyond all that, although there will still be many thousands of light years to the core should I make it that far.

The path here was exceptionally hard to find - the hardest yet by far - but at long, long last after giving up on several occasions I've just found the waypoint two jumps forward at Clookeou TK-C D14-31. I had to resort to all sorts of techniques but finally the one that worked was to filter by star type which thinned out the options enough when looking at G type stars to pick out the further one. That in turn narrowed the search parameters for the intermediate jump which turned out to be to Clookeou IA-W A111-O, and I'm underway again !!!! Let's hope this was an especially tricky one to find but I have no good reason to suppose it was when I just look at the route. It didn't depart radically from stars I thought I'd repeatedly checked but there are now so many possible jumps its difficult to be exhaustive. I must find some more systematic techniques if my journey is to continue coreward for much longer.

Just before I reached the long awaited waypoint of my old earth like discovery in Clookeou, I entered a zone where many borders meet. In the space of a relatively few systems I found myself bouncing between all of the following sectors;

Eodgols, Eidaills, Pru Ain, Eidaik, Blae Hypue, Synookio and Clookeou.

Somewhere in this mix I returned to the Norma Expanse, leading to a small rush of landings to pick up quick Codex gains I'd failed to find in my earlier crossing before I'd passed relatively briefly into the Arm region. There are, of course, plenty more to discover but apart from some stellar classes which I'd need to deviate from my route to pick up, they will be harder to isolate now. I think I've bagged most of the easy ones.

When I came to my target waypoint (which I must redact until my explorer data is cashed in), I was pleased to find that this time I would be the first mapper for my earth like world. I buckled down to a bit more mapping in the same system and was rewarded with another geological Codex gain of a silcate vapor gas vent. I'm starting to pick up a decent supply of minerals in these landings and enjoying the break from jumping and scanning this offers.

This was a key decision point. To my right, about 1500 light years away and considerably further below the galactic plane, I happen to have some marked systems from the original outbound route which I will need to tag at some point. So, jump the gap now and start the long return to civilisation or press on?

I've chosen to press on. My hull is down to 79%. Hope this won't be a mistake!

Now I'm deep in the forest of Clookeou stars. The last 30 jumps have all been exclusively in this sector. It's getting harder and harder to pick out the route but somehow I'm still finding the way forward. My next waypoint, another earth like, is relatively close, only 1,424 light years ahead in Gria Hypue. Also I am looking out for the transition from the Norma Expanse to the Norma Arm which happens somewhere along the way.

Stellar density is increasing all the time and at some unknown point the route bends up and to the right. That could be a tricky point to find. I don't know how sharp the bend is or when to expect it and changes in direction massively slow navigation, which frankly is already hard enough. I am fairly confident I didn't do any right angle swerves but I can't really recall. Anyway, hopefully all will be revealed in due course. Onwards and upwards!

Eodgols, Eidaills, Eidaik and Pru Ain. Now I see this region again I recall bagging systems from all of them. Getting closer to Clookeou all the time. Target there is now only a little over 1000 light years away.

I'm now more than 10,000 ly from Sol, although it is still further to the core than it is back to the Bubble

The slow drift down towards the galatic plane of Sol and spinward to the direct Sol to Sag A line took me out of the Expanse and into the Arm sooner than I expected. EDSM was flagging systems as belonging to the Arm a couple of systems before the ships computer acknowledged the change so there would appear to be some small discrepency in their opinions of exactly where the border lies. No matter, it was a good opportunity to pick up some Codex credits and I started to take world mapping more seriously as well as noting the types of volcanism in an effort to avoid wasted landings.

I'm not sure I've got the hang of the best method to pick up new discoveries in the most efficient manner yet but I'm learning to pay more attention to system map data. Along the way I came across two of the most beautiful landing sites I've so far had the pleasure of driving around, one with a major planet and a major and minor sun in the sky above an interesting bowl shaped valley where an array of stone pillars were emitting drifting clouds of gorgeous white steam into the deep red sunshine. Another was a much darker twilight valley, a few systems further on, brooding and claustrophobic where there were some excellent metals to be picked up.

I smashed the ship up a bit though trying to pick up another codex entry and taking a high gravity world landing a bit too casually. Hit hard enough to spank the shields down to zero and bash the hull to 83%. Ouch! Must be more careful in future.

Most of these systems have only ever been visited by me and I found one where I'd missed an earth like as being out of the range of my scanner the first time. This turned out to be one of the few systems also visited since by another commander who had spotted my missed opportunity. I made sure I did the mapping for that one anyway, since he hadn't (most likely it was still before surface mapping was a thing) so I should get some credits.

Now I've finally hit the zero line from Sol and at more or less the same time just broken out into the Eodgols sector. Here my route has stopped drifting, arrowed down the line to Sag A and opened up the distances per jump. Previously it had been averaging around 20 ly now it's closer to 29 ly which was the max I was able to travel on the first journey. The tagged way point of my earth like in Clookeou is less than 2000 ly ahead.

At that point I have a big navigational decision to make. Press on further towards the core or cut across to the old return leg and close the loop? I happen to have a couple of systems tagged in a nebula on the return leg which are not too far from Clookeou (where 2000 light years or so, now seems not too far!) so that's a possibility. I can always complete the coreward journey on a third expedition. That will be the hardest leg and if I make that choice I'll want to find an alternative and quicker way out here to get to the trail head, maybe stopping at some of the new outposts and definitely using improved jump range options to best effect.

Honestly not decided whether to cut this mission "short" (for some value of "short", since it won't exactly be quick even closing down the loop) or push on and try and do the whole thing in one go. Still a little time before I must decide.