TGOC2018, Day 12: Steak night

In which we change our route. Again.

The road had been fairly busy overnight, mostly overnight fishermen (fisherpeople?) and the odd Scottish Water waggon – no scroats though. Well none that I’d been aware of.

We were up and away by 8.30am. It was quite cold and windy, certainly compared to most of the weather we’d been enjoying so far on this Challenge, we needed to be wrapped up.

Loads of primroses by the reservoir

Mike had A Good Idea, a change of route to avoid some of the day’s tarmac. It worked out well: north alongside the eastern shore of Backwater Reservoir > east and north by Glen Quharity > east through Glen Uig and then to Glen Prosen.

The day slowly warmed up, soon it was warm enough to remove my trusty Velez.

At sitting down / elevenses time, when I was tucking into a tasty and nutritious Snickers bar, that two figures appeared in the far distance. At first we thought the two little dots might be Fran and Allen but as they got closer I recognised familiar figures of fellow Kilchoan starters, the Tattershalls of Salisbury. It was good to catch up with them again, having not seen them since the ferry to Polloch on Day 2.

We walked together for a while, through some rocky terrain very reminiscent of the White Peak – in particular the area around Peveril Castle.

John & Sue went their own way after a while, they were headed to Kirriemuir whilst our destination was still a little uncertain at that point…although we had A Cunning Plan.

Airlie Tower

The road to Clova…and other places

A man in a kilt at Cortachy Castle

Walking by Cortachy and it’s rather lovely castle we spotted Keith Leonard, Stormin’ and John Woolston. Keith had retired from the Challenge due to a very painful back problem but Stormin’ and Jhn were able to continue. Keith had rejoined his team-mates and was just carrying on to the coast in their good company.

Much banter ensued. none of it aimed at my knees…or Mike’s knees. Or our kilts. If anything they were impressed. Although Keith lives fairly locally to me, we rarely see each other outside of the Challenge fortnight.

The Timothy Taylor Landlord QC Team on tour

Anyway, it appeared that we all had the same Cunning Plan and a couple of hours later we were shifting large quantities of quite nice TT Landlord and chomping our way through steak (& chips) and all the trimmings.

We drank the pub dry of Landlord. As there was no point in staying up any longer, at rather very late o’clock, we retired to our tents.

I slept well. I even slept through the snorings….although that may have been because I was camping a good distance from it’s source. Or maybe because of the TT Landlord.

Cuckoo count: 1

Other wildlife: Keith, Stormin’ & John