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Last night Lynn and I ate dinner in the hotel bar. We were lamenting the fact that we were missing the TGO party at the NWB campsite. Within minutes a group of Challengers walked in the door and joined us for a hilarious dinner. Present were Andy, Richard, Alistsair, Gordon, Jim and Bill. We had a very good laugh sharing stories from our crossing. 🙂

Today marks the end of our coast to coast adventure (at least the walking part). We left the hotel in Edzell after the full Scottish culinary experience with a nice early 7:55am start. Brett will be happy to know the bacon butties were fantastic! The nasty weather of yesteday had cleared and we were greeted with blue skies and sun! 🙂

Edzell is on the West bank of the river so we took a unmarked alley path behind the local petrol station to reach a footbridge to cross the North Esk river. Given the rain of the last week it was a real gusher. We then pushed onto North Water Bridge (NWB) which was our original destination for yesterday. We arrived at the campsite to find it devoid of challengers. At this point the land here is flat and the little wild footpaths of our crossing are no more; we’re walking on regular roads which is painful after 10 miles.

After passing through NWB we headed East to the ocean passing over ‘hill of Morphie’, perhaps the largest hill on the coast at 120m. We found a nice new set of stairs to a railway bridge that we used to re-cross the river Esk. We took this ‘shortcut’ in the hope that the pub in Marymill was open. Alas it was closed so no trail beers today. 🙁

The countryside here is beautiful with lots of arable farming and a lot of dairy cattle.

We arrived St Cyrus by 1pm and found a lovely sunny day for the hike down the high cliff to the ocean. After a brief paddle we headed back to a cafe for some celebratory lunch followed by a short bus ride to Montrose and our final signout at TGO mission control. We we greeted with a furm handshake and a "well done" from Uncle Roger. We now have a nice t-shirt, certificate and, most important of all, a great set of memories.

The ‘challenge’ is aptly named – it’s both a physical and mental endeavor that I’m pleased to say is done. Would I do it again? Absolutely – great fun to plan, amazing landscape, wonderful people and an all round fun experience.

Tomorrow night we have the official TGO dinner which will no doubt entail lots of booze and great stories from the trail. Friday we’ll drive back to Accrington for a final weekend with family before flying home to Seattle on Friday.