Day 13: North Water Bridge to Montrose

We were up early and quickly walking along the lanes that would take us into St. Cyrus. Mostly this is a pleasant walk despite the fact that it is all on tarmac. The Hill of Morphie presents one last hill and blow me down if it doesn't have a false summit!

By the time we came to the outskirts of St. Cyrus the sun was beginning to shine through. It suddenly struck me that this was the first time I had seen St. Cyrus in sun. It looked quite pretty rather than the usual slate grey! As we strolled in we were greeted by a rather happy local who told us that we were the first people through that he'd seen that morning. We reassured him that there was a long line of Challengers behind us.

After dipping our feet in the water we sat back on the sand dunes and enjoyed a little of the sun, eventually joined by a number of other Challengers who were coming in. Back at the café near the bus stop we bumped into a little throng of Challengers, including Mick and Gayle and John Manning. The café\s bacon and cheese scones were rather unusual but pretty good.

A load of us packed the bus into Montrose. Kate wondered where all the Scots had gone. It was true. We hadn't met any really since Braemar. Bus drivers, café owners all seemed to be from south of the border. A bit of a mystery really.

At Braemar we led our group through our biggest challenge yet, reaching the Park Hotel to sign off. As always this is a lovely experience. We took our free cup of coffee and biscuit, picked up our certificates and T Shirts from Roger, pinned on our badges and collected a free miniature of whiskey!

The Montrose campsite is my kind of place even though it is tucked away behind the beach and a chemical factory. The staff are always very helpful. We asked if we could borrow some washing powder only for the manager to give us some of his own personal stuff. The toilets and showers hear are legendary not least because they pipe in the local commercial radio station. This may not seem much of an attraction but it is quite nice after two weeks of only minimal contact with civilisation. I was rather pleased to notice that the quizzes and jingles hadn't changed much in two years. There's not much modern stuff just good old classics.

After cleaning ourselves up it was back up to the Park Hotel bar to spend a happy afternoon with most of the people we'd been with on and off since Tarfside. There's an informal Challenge meal at the hotel on Wednesday evenings but Graham Green led us all up to the town to the Bombay Dreams restaurant for what was a great curry. We had a great evening with Graham, Jon Hancock, Alistair Hunt and Lyn Paquette and Nigel Ellis. This bunch of first timers were really first rate and it was a privilege to spend the evening with them. I'm really looking forward to bumping into them in future years.

I believe it was dark when we left the restaurant. It was quite disorientating, almost like your normal kind of day back home when bedtime is night time!

OS Map 45

The bus that runs along the coast from Stonehaven to Montrose connects with most of the finishing points on this stretch. The bus runs at hourly intervals and will drop you right in the heart of Montrose, just 5 minutes walk from the Park Hotel.

The campsite is a mere ten minutes walk from the Park Hotel.