On the following day after the Newburgh walk I was invited out to walk again with a friend. I thoroughly enjoy her company and she loves sea views. So although I wanted to continue walking on the Coastal Path by sticking to The Plan, I was quite painfully aware that the next stage of the walk was away from the beaches and on country roads. So after having made The Plan to walk the Path in some sort of logical order, I decided to abandon and completely ignore The Plan again and go back “down the coast” to continue where I had left off at Craighead. After all, the only rules about how to walk the Path are in my head.
The weather was mild and bright, the blue sky had some grey-white fluffy clouds but nothing ominous. I was even more prepared this time, the rough paths would be my excuse for trying out my new walking poles – which by some sort of strange coincidence are my favourite colour and match the bright red colour of my jacket. I like red. Deal with it.
Once I’d driven through Crail, I headed for the Crail Golfing Society car park, driving down the single-track road which shoots straight through the disused airfield. It’s easy to guess the WW2 history of these brick barracks with their metal window frames holding remnants of shattered glass. The rounded hangars of corrugated iron are gradually losing their shape to the rust but the runways are in remarkably good condition and still being used as a raceway for drag racing. By the sound of the growling engine noises which followed us at every step on this walk, there are also dirt bikes in constant use nearby. My friend commented that this must make for a relaxing game for the Sunday golfers on the course.
The Path along this section at Fife Ness was uneven and an ankle-challenging mixture of stones, gravel and mud path. But the views were worth every slip, every stumble and every steep climb. And my walking poles were worth every penny. The path headed past the coastguard station, in front of which stands another reminder of the second world war; a pillbox. The concrete looked a bit rough, with stones mixed into it, and at first I thought that construction had been a little hurried. Actually, to be truthful, I thought they’d made a botched job of it. Then, as we walked further down the path, I realised it must have been an attempt to camouflage the little gun emplacement from the air. I thought of how grateful those men stationed here would have been for the protection of that concrete if the pillbox had ever been used (it wasn’t). Here and now though, it was just an ugly, oddly-shaped, concrete hut sitting next to a wooden bird hide.
Moving on a little to stand on the corner of Fife, the stunning views stretched in every direction. It’s one of those views which makes everyone feel like they should be a professional photographer, despite the fact that no camera can fully capture it. Everything you point your camera lens at is stunning, but the resulting image is always missing something. It’s impossible to record the patterns of sunlight on the clouds which chase each other across the sky. Or the rolling, boiling, changing shades of the sea, at first the colour seems bright blue-green like a postcard of tropical seas, then it changes to dark grey like an oil painting of a sinking clipper. On a small pile of black rocks a little way out, a few cormorants dried their wings and I kept my eye on them as we walked, hoping that one of them would show off and dive, but they were shy today.
As we walked, the rocky shore gave way to tiny natural bays of white sand beaches and if the wind had stopped blowing, or if the sun had stayed out a little longer, or if the sea had been a little warmer, it would have been nice to remove a layer or five and go paddling. We came across a handful of static caravans a little way back from a beach and in front of them stood a perfect fisherman’s cottage. The squat little stone building sat beside a natural harbour and bay and it looked idyllic in the sunshine, prompting us to turn and take in the view that the owner must see every day. I felt a little pang of desire to be in the house, curled up on a comfortable armchair with a cup of tea beside a roaring fire, looking out of the picture frame window to that view. The image was immediately challenged by my overly-practical brain which assured me that if I was trying to sleep in that house on a freezing cold, stormy winter’s night, with the sea-spray, wind and rain battering those tiny windows (which didn’t look very draught-proofed) I would feel very differently.
We finally wandered through the Sauchope caravan park admiring the elegant caravans and wood-fired hot tubs, although we decided that, despite the fact that the hot tubs were eco-friendly, they required too much effort to light. We chased away two seagulls so that we could stop to rest on a picnic bench, lamenting our lack of a cuppa. We could see Crail was a short walk from here but I didn’t feel strongly enough motivated to carry on into the village. My friend kindly promised me a cup of tea from her flask when we got back to the car park – incentive enough to start moving again and head back the way we came.
When we arrived back at the car park, a cup of tea was exactly what I needed. The view in front of us was better than the view from the fisherman’s house; before us lay the gently rolling green slopes of the golf course, a picturesque small stone building, the distant Tayside coast outlined against the sky with the tallest hills still wearing their snow-caps and miles and miles of sea under a sunny sky. The perfect end to a perfect walk.
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