Day 13: North Water Bridge to St Cyrus

The last day. Over roads and to the coast. If it sounds uninspiring this, well, the walk is not really that bad. Yes, we were walking on tarmac most of the way but along lovely country lanes that meandered through some lovely farmland. And there was one more hill to climb, the Hill of Morphie. Morphie is a bit of a tease. There is a false summit, but you do eventually get to see the sea. Soon you are walking through the very solid and sensible looking seaside town of St. Cyrus.

Looking Back to the Hills

We arrived at the beach a little after eleven, to find one other couple of Challengers. The beach is a great place to rest a while - or maybe longer - and meditate; to think about a journey that seemed to have started an age ago, and in another world. But today the bitter wind was whipping through the dunes and so we quickly retreated back to the café which is conveniently located next to the bus stop. In fact, there was a bus at the stop and on we hopped.

Suddenly were were being spirited to Montrose, a lot earlier than we had thought. I quite like finishing on Wednesday. As I've already explained, a stay at Tarfside is fatal. But, more than that, I get bored when the landscape begins to change. I suppose that the magic begins to fade quickly from Braemar on. There's another day in the hills but that's about your lot. Perhaps it is this growing boredom that makes the walking seem harder on the feet, adds extra weight to that pack and aches to those limbs. In truth, I suppose, the highlands come with their own adrenaline rush - as to all long walks. Take this away and things aren't the same.

And so we settled down to another part of the Challenge experience. We reported to Challenge Control, which proved to be a big disappointment to Kate. She'd expected something a little like the bridge of the Enterprise, well at least something with a few computers. Instead, there was Roger with his ledger book and pencils! But this is a very efficient, low cost and sustainable system, for which all of us should be grateful. This year our commemorative T Shirt (courtesy of Rab) was made from real Cotton - hurrah! Roger proudly presented us with a brand new certificate, certainly posher looking than last years; but just one thing. There at the bottom quarter was a photograph of Bob Cartwight. I complained. "I can't take this" I exclaimed. It took Roger a second or two to realise I was joking!

The campsite in Montrose is a comfortable place and the man in the hut as jolly and as engaging as last year. After pitching we did our laundry, found some lunch, took an afternoon nap and eventually made our way to the Wednesday evening dinner.

The Wednesday dinner is not the formal end of event dinner, that comes on Thursday. But in many ways I prefer it. I guess there were about 50 Challengers there. Somehow we managed to spend the evening, once again, with Alan Sloman. A delightful as Alan is I don't think my constitution could cope with doing this too often.

Sitting a couple of places away from me was Hamish Brown, the walker and writer who invented the Challenge over 27 years ago now. I plucked up courage to ask him for an interview for the podcast series. Chris Townsend has been suggesting to me for a while that we should talk to Hamish. I thought it would be nice to get his thoughts on seeing his baby still thriving after all these years. But Hamish declined quite sharply. He never gives interviews, he said. Checking with Chris later he couldn't think of ever hearing a Hamish interview, so maybe he's just very shy. Shame though. I did wonder whether some of us had annoyed him a little. Over our meal there had been some banter about clubbing together and buying Cameron McNeish a wind turbine for Christmas!