I was up, packed, and on the road early. Only Andy had left before me, and I could see little sign of him on the road. Now the walking was all on road, through undulating farmland which looked quite prosperous. The hills were well and truly behind me.
Lower land and rich farmland
I didn't find the road walking too off-putting. The roads were largely small and quiet. There was one more hill to climb, the Hill of Morphie, the track over which lead through farmland and directly down to St. Cyrus and the sea. Over every little rise I hoped to see the sea, but the Hill of Morphie is really a high plateau. Eventually, the sea loomed into sight and my body reacted quite strangely. As soon as I saw the water everything started to ache; the foot began to ache again (it felt like tendentious), the pack become uncomfortable (for the first time since the west coast), my knees began to creak, and I developed a headache!
At last: the sea!
There's not much at St.Cyrus, which is a small, spick and span kind of a place, but a café conveniently located next to the bus stop to Montrose looked promising. I continued on, climbed down the cliff path which was marked "Closed - dangerous path". This time I was in no mood to follow instructions; I just wanted to finish. On the beach was Andy, quite and reflective. After I'd walked out into the sea - Challenge custom - I sat and chatted to Andy. Would he do this again? Yes he would, but he now had only a few months before his RAF discharge and wasn't sure what he would be doing this time next year.
The End!
Andy and I climbed back up to the café and met a load of other Challengers just about to descend the cliff path. There were lots of congratulations, hand-shakes and kisses all round. People were excited by the café; usually this is closed during the Challenge period. It was a great disappointment I'm afraid; I'd been spoilt by the quality of the cafés I'd come across throughout the length of the journey.
Loads of us piled onto the bus, rucksacks flying left, right and centre; regular passengers didn't seem to know what to make of it. Soon we were in Montrose, heading for Park Hotel and Challenge Control. We all signed-off, collected out certificates, T-shirts (rather nice Berghaus base-layers) and commemorative badge. Volunteers plied us with coffee and biscuits and it was nice to sit back and relax. Roger Smith (event co-ordinator) came over for a chat and said how much he'd enjoyed my blog on preparing for the Challenge - nice that. I was a day ahead of the Thursday evening dinner but found out that there was a more informal meal that evening. I booked-in and went off in search of the campsite.
Waiting for the bus to Montrose
This was another great site, run by the Council, with great facilities and a great guy who was the warden. He greeted me with, "you've done this kind of thing before". I was about to ask about his Sherlock Holmes-type powers of deduction when he said that, very often, people struggled in, barely able to raise their weight off their trekking poles.
During the afternoon the site filled-up with many of those I'd left Tarfside with. Super Legend and family appeared. SL, rather typically, announced that he was staying in the campsite all evening and would therefore keep an eye on everything; there was nothing to worry about. Then he introduced me to Dave who was also going for the meal at the Park Hotel. Dave had terrible blisters, so bad in fact that he had developed an infection which was being treated by a hefty course of antibiotics.
The Wednesday evening meal is a really lovely event and I was glad I'd arrived a day early. There was a nice bunch there. During the evening somebody crept up behind me and gave me a big hug. It as Anita who, at Tarfside, had discussed walking in her trail shoes. Apparently, she had worn them and had kept them on, all the way to the coast. She had become as much an evangelist for trail shoes as anyone else that I had ever come across. But her Scarpas were too heavy; she was determined to explore the Inov-8 range. A true convert!
After a small speech from Roger it was time to return to the site, and look forward to a day-off in Montrose.