Day 15
Valley East of Berry Cairn to Montrose
Daily Distance 28.6k, Time Naismith 6.48, Daily Ascent 399m, Daily Average Altitude 94m
The map shows our actual route in Blue, and the intended route where it was different in red. The blue numbers on our route are highlighted in the text.
In the morning we climbed Berry Cairn and descended to a track where we passed our first house 1. The occupants, walking their dog, were the first people we had seen since the summit of Tolmount 2 days before. They guessed we were Challengers and walked down with us towards Burn Foot.
From there we followed the road between The Caterthun hills, our last climb, and road walked to Brechin, stopped in a café 2, filled up at a bakery, and set off along the main road to Montrose. This mostly has no pavement 3 so was bit wearing, but we did it at speed, to get it over with.
By Montrose I had my first blister, nothing like Ellie had been suffering. We walked down to the beach and then signed off at the Park Hotel at about 3.30 in the afternoon. "There only 7 challengers still to finish" we were told. We camped at the campsite and talked gear, attended the meal and, following drinks at the Park, swapped bits of this story for others' tales.
Epilogue
Ellie's feet were so painful for most of this Challenge that to keep enjoying long distance walking she went to a specialist shop in Oldham to have her gait analysed and see if there were better shoes. It did not seem as if there were better shoes, so, interpreting their advice, we have remodelled the Inov8 Flyroc shoes she wears to tighten the heel cup with an added lace and cut away the stiff part of the shoe that was causing the other blister.
We have since completed 3 weeks of the Pyrenean Haute Route without using compeed or painkillers, so success!
We get to almost lightweight backpacking without we think being Spartan, by sharing camp gear. The next page shows "our packing list".
