Cove to Abbey St Bathans

It maybe wasn't the best start to the day. Rosemary actually woke up before me, a minor miracle. But I wasn't ready to be awake and was weirdly distressed for way too long. I need time to wake up and COVID has affected how I feel about 'doing stuff'. 

We were still late leaving the house and I was slow as a snail in getting up to where Izzy was picking us up. My camera bag weighed a ton. The girls were running an ultra-marathon for fun and they were dumping me on the coast and leaving me to find my way to the bakery in Abbey St Bathans 17-km away. I hadn't actually thought about my plan, didn't have any water and was even more distressed to find the east coast haar buggering up my photo opportunities. 

The girls drove off very quickly, so I didn't have a choice but to just get on with it. Luckily, Cove is a beautiful wee harbour and there were all sorts of birds and fine geology about. I was soon at peace....walked a few km and then found myself at Pease (Bay). As there's a holiday park there, I avoided the beach. Then it was up onto the Southern Upland Way, through the Pease nature reserve. Whilst it involved trekking up a huge hill, it was beautiful. The bit beside the A1 was less cool, but I saw orange tipped butterfly and a huge peacock one too.

The SUW was less pretty, more industrial farm than anything. But I watched a whole lot of swallows by the farm at Blackburn. Further along the trail, I found myself in a field of cows. One only had a single udder, so I decided to climb a fence to avoid it. Unfortunately, it was an electric fence and I got a massive shock! 

I was starting to get tired too. My camera bag was fully loaded, even though I only used one lens! I was also very thirsty. I had enough food though.

It was nice to get to Abbey St Bathans, around a 20km nearly all uphill hike. Cake was selling out fast! So I bought Izzy & Rosemary some before it sold out. They arrived just after 15:30 so right on schedule......and they were lucky I had bout the cake!