Where to start....
1. Your GPS device is making a recalculation of your route before you start, as you created it originally outside of BaseCamp. You simply used BaseCamp as a medium to get it from Google into your GPS device *. The problem probably lies in that Google map’s map is different to Garmin’s map, therefore the roads may well not line up exactly. You have created a route that follows Google’s roads, your poor device is now trying to match them to roads that it knows are there
2. There is no way of us knowing how you created your route (other than it was done in Google) so we have no way of knowing if there are shaping points or waypoints in between the start point A in your route and its end point, B
3. I am guessing, as you haven’t given us a screen shot, that when you first open the route on your device you are given two choices: Go to start point A or Go to end point B and nothing else? You chose end point B, perhaps? If you were a long way from A, or a long way from your route (ignore the bloke who said there is no such thing as a route, he’s only confused you) and / or a long way from B, your device will do exactly as you have told it to do: It will take you from wherever you are to B, down roads that it selects according to your preference settings. If there is only only one road from where you are to B and that (by chance) corresponded with your route, then it will follow your route exactly.... unless, that is, for example, a motorway and you had set your preferences to avoid motorways, in which case it may take you all around the houses.
You have then mixed other, unrelated, questions into the one thread. Concentrate on one thing at a time. If you have a secondary question, a third, tenth or even 100th (it matters not) start a fresh thread, that keeps things on topic.
My advice:
1. Get used to using BaseCamp properly. It really is not hard. Using it removes one key variable at a stroke, in that it removes the sometimes unwanted guff that comes through from third party software.... one of the most common problems we see here on these pages
2. There is a string of very good, ‘How to use BaseCamp’ videos. Watch them
https://www.ukgser.com/forums/showthread.php/455445-Some-good-BaseCamp-tutorial-videos
3. Read the instructions (including the download owners manual) on your very expensive and very powerful - but sometimes (not often) incredibly stupid - GPS device
4. The best way to learn is to experiment. You are going on the NC 500, in essence that is one road, easily shown on a map. Create your route for it and see what happens. If it doesn’t work, it won’t be a disaster as you can just follow the signs or use a paper map
5. Learn what a shaping point is. Learn what a waypoint is. Learn how they work. The answers to these are explained in this part of the forum, on line and (just about) in the owner’s handbook
6. Learn what Preference settings mean and what they do. This will include automatic or promoted or no recalculation, just as much as it will include avoiding toll roads. Learn the dangers of setting too many preferences to ‘on’. You’ll forget and moan like hell that your stupid device keeps routing you off the motorway. Preference settings and multiple avoidances are only really useful for bods who just want to do nothing more than get a dumb device to tell them how to get from A to B, down twisty roads and avoiding motorways.... they do not want to do any planning themselves; which is fine.
7. Learn how, within your Nav VI itself, you can change a waypoint into a shaping point and visa-versa
8. Learn how, by using the very powerful BaseCamp software, you can give waypoints certain pre-determined qualities. For a simple example, if you have a route A to C, via waypoint B, the device will tell you it will take you X number of hours / minutes to complete the journey. Let’s pretend that waypoint B is a lunch stop that you want to take an hour over. You can give the waypoint the attribute that you will be there for one hour. The software will then extend the journey time by one hour
9. Learn how to give your routes individual date and start times. They will then appear in Trip Planner in sequential date and time order, just like a calendar. If you create two alternative routes for say next Tuesday, one not using a motorway, the other taking one, as you are not sure what the weather will be like, you can give the motorway route a start time of say 30 minutes later as it will be quicker. It will appear in its time slot on the day, after the non-motorway route. This will help you remember (when it is peeing down and you are miles from home) which route is which
10. Learn how YOU (not me or anyone else) likes to name your routes, rather than have the software automatically name then for you. Use names that you think will make sense when you are maybe 1000 miles from home on day three of your adventure. Me? If I had a route that left A to go to C via B, I would probably name it C via B from A. Why would I do it that way? Because it makes sense to me to do it that way. Modern GPS devices and their associated generic software are all but PC’s in their own right, with the emphasis on the P of Personal. What makes sense to me, personally, may not make any sense to you. That is fine; do what works reliably for you.... but.... learn the basics, as some of them you cannot do anything but Garmin’s way. Learn them and everything else becomes very easy. As I said, the devices are now very clever but sometimes very stupid
11. Learn some of the tricks and tips that appear on the GPS section of the forum; it really is very good. For example, I learned the trick of placing a waypoint (a point that I must go through) say a mile or so from my start point. Why? When I select the route in Trip Planner I will see GO TO: A (my start point) B (the waypoint one mile away) or C (the end point). If I am not exactly at my start point A or even close to the route, I know that if I chose B the device will route me there and then automatically run the route to C thereafter. I never or rarely used waypoints in my routes, favouring shaping points instead. I have now grown to love the careful (as opposed to shotgun) use of waypoints as a part of a route
12. Learn how to break routes up. I would suggest not putting the whole of the NC 500 adventure into your device as one single route. If you haven’t great. If you have, well that’s up to you.... it’s the P in Personal, again
Richard
* Even routes nicely and neatly created from the start in BaseCamp might well recalculate when they are loaded into a Garmin device’s memory and from there into Trip Planner. 99 times (or more) out of 100 that does not matter, as the nicely and neatly created route will be recreated faithfully in Trip Planner...... one golden rule, though:
Check ALL your routes on your device BEFORE you leave the comfort of your home and PC. Mending things there is a lot easier than scratching your head 100’s of miles from home. Immodestly, I think I am pretty good at Garmin GPS devices, having used them since their earliest incarnations and before that Palm Pilots or whatever they were called. Even now they sometimes throw me something odd but I know enough not to panic and can ignore a sudden bizarre instruction to ride (in the right direction) for miles and then make a bizarre U-turn before coming back again, all seemingly on one correct magenta route line. If nothing else, I can turn it off and just use it as a map.
Have fun.... you are only just beginning.