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[Trail blog is here]

   The next morning we woke early for a 7am breakfast. Had a lovely bowl of porridge and toast. We left the hotel and had a pretty uneventful walk into St Cyrus. Leaving Edzell you can cross the river on foot by taking a poorly marked path behind the petrol station. From there it’s a straight shot into Northwater Bridge. By the time we passed the campsite it was empty of challengers so we made a quick deposit in the loo and kept on trucking.

There was lots of road walking into St Cyrus with no other real options. After passing through Mains of Gallery we were a little peckish and thought about trying to find a pub in Marykirk. Rather than backtracking, we found a new set of stairs up and over the railway bridge. Not sure if this is intended for foot traffic but it was pretty cool with great views of the fields. Lots of arable land here with tons of rapeseed growing (yellow). Unfortunately the pub was closed so it was onto Morphie and more road walking into St Cyrus.

The weather was much better today with blue skies and nice sunshine. A fitting end to some of the worst weather the challenge has seen. On entering St Cyrus, we passed a small café which had lots of rucksacks outside (as sure sign of a Challenger’s “trade route”). From there it was on to the cliffs and a surprising descent down to the beach. We left our packs at the cliff top so it felt like nothing to climb down and back up after nice pictures snapped on the beach.

Off back to the café and then a bus ride into town on the "challenger express" before signing out at the Park Hotel. A nice welcome from Uncle Rodger, certificates, biscuits and tea before heading out to our B&B at the south end of town.

We were sore, tired, glad it was over but pleased to have finished our 1st TGO challenge.

Distance today was 18km making a total of 262km

On to final thoughts