Thanks for the suggestions :)

I thought about going back to Braemar as a FWA for Jock's Road, but then I would have to do either really long day or loose a day.

It seem doing both Jock's Road and Tarfside is a bit tricky, and maybe a bit much for a first time. So I will probably skip Jock's Road an go for Gelder Shiel Stable and Shielin of Mark.

On my first Challenge, way back in 2000, I was beaten back by the weather when attempting to go over from Clova to Tarfside via Loch Brandy, and ended up trolling the roads to Memus (which still had a camp site back then) and so to Brechin and by road to Montrose.

It was a bit of a disappointing finish to my first crossing ... although the euphoria of finishing eclipsed the disappointment.

Lunch in front of a roaring fire in the bar of the Clova Hotel while I reappraised my options (and phoned Challenge Control from the phone box to discuss my re-routing options ... no mobile phones in those days!) was a particularly memorable occasion; and saw me give the first (and so far only) public performance of the song I had written on the way across. I'm sure I have published it on this message board some time before, but it will be lost in the mists of antiquity. So here it is again. To be sung to the tune of "O the praties they grow small" ...



Every night the cuckoos call
Way up here, way up here
Every night the cuckoos call
And I long to shoot them all
But I lack powder, gun and ball
Way up here, way up here!

Oh we started in the West
By the sea, by the sea
Yes we started in the West
And we gave it of our best
Now we've made it through the test
You and me, you and me!

Sure we've all got blistered feet
Girls and men, girls and men
Sure we've all got blistered feet
Caused by squelching through the peat
At the place the waters meet
'Neath the beinn, 'neath the beinn

But we've reached the eastern coast
Over here, over here
Yes we've reached the eastern coast
And that ain't no idle boast
So please raise your glass and toast
"To next year - to next year!"

When we'll all be back again
If God wills, if God wills
Yes we'll all be back again
To do battle with the rain
Not to mention the terrain
Glens and hills, glens and hills!



And the critical reception it received at that first public performance? I was taken to task for "girls and men". Well, yes, OK ... but there's no viable alternative which wouldn't have played merry hell with the scansion and the rhyme of the piece, is there???