The Road goes ever on and on; Down from the door where it began;
Now far ahead the Road has gone; And I must follow, if I can;
Pursuing it with eager feet; Until it joins some larger way;
Where many paths and errands met; And whither then? I cannot say.

[JRR Tolkien, Lord of the Rings]

Thursday 20 June 2013

TGO Challenge 2013 Photos (Part 4–North Water Bridge to Nether Warburton)

Day 12

Only four photos from this, the final day of our walk and every single one of them features blue sky! They were also all taken within a mile of, or at, the finish, but I seem to recall that there was blue sky in view the whole time that we were walking (even if the sun hid behind clouds far too much for my liking). We had had the sea in view for a while, but this was when we first got a proper view of Nether Warburton:

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And after making our way across the old river bed (the river re-routed itself after a flood in a year that I can’t recall; there was an information sign telling us about it), through the dunes and down the beach, here we were: happy to have dipped our feet in the sea (but still failing to manage to take a photo with the Stickpic without getting the pole into the shot):

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Having reached Nether Warburton, we then ambled up the beach to St Cyrus, where we found Aussie Mike who kindly took this photo for us (note that we’re going to try to achieve photos at two finish points again next year, but next time they’ll be more than half a mile apart):

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The only thing left for us to do was to make our way up the cliff path to get to the bus stop so that we could get to Montrose to sign out. I would say, based on the evidence of this final photo, that Mick and Mike ignored the cliff path closure, but it turned out (when I caught them up at the top) that they hadn’t even seen the sign.

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So that’s it: that’s the photos from this year’s Challenge. Next year a far bigger percentage will include blue skies and/or views (I can live without the blue skies if we get the views, but given the choice (and if I was to be really picky) I would like both).

13 comments:

  1. And I'm pretty certain that for most of your walk, you'll get them! (See, I can make a sensible comment...)

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  2. But non-sensible comments are quite fun! Your last batch of 3 all arrived when my phone switched itself on at 6am yesterday morning and even through my bleary eyes they made me start my day with a smile.

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  3. Oh good! I was having a moment. Not sure what kind of moment...

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  4. I think you may have been unlucky with your weather. We had it pretty fine after the first few days.
    :-(
    Nice write-up - really enjoyed it
    :-)

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    1. I think you're right about our lack of luck with the weather this year. Last year, when everyone else was complaining about days upon days of persistent rain, we enjoyed our best-weather-yet Challenge (a matter upon which I commented in this post: http://www.gayleybird.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/challenge-2012-weather.html). Things eventually have to even out and hence we got dreary greyness this year, even if it was dry far more than it was wet.

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  5. I thought I'd mentioned this to you before: guaranteed good weather for the next two Challenges....coinciding with my guaranteed places on both. As long as I don't sing.

    JJ

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    Replies
    1. Glad to hear that you've got the weather pre-booked already :-)

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  6. Ah but where will be the subject matter for tales of hardship and suffering if you have just have blue skies?

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    Replies
    1. I can live with just having tales of wonderful weather and blue skies! (Hark at me; what a fair weather walker I have become!)

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  7. Ah - such a happy and optimistic ending. Well done!

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  8. Hi Gayle. You're a year ahead of yourself. It's still 2013 - see above.

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    Replies
    1. Ooops! Well spotted. I blame it on planning next year's route at the same time as sorting this year's photos.

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  9. Hi M&G,

    Sorting through my photos and found this one taken at the Montrose camp ground:

    http://bit.ly/1dEFw6N

    Cheers,

    Mike

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