Fife - Day 2

The light in the morning was very dramatic.

We left Elie and drove to St Andrews, stopping for fuel on the way. We parked at the West Sands car park.

The tide was very far out, and we walked all the way up the West Sands beach to the end, then round into the River Eden estuary.

We stopped for lunch at a viewpoint overlooking the bay.

Then we walked all the way back to the town itself.

We bought some fudge donuts from Fisher and Donaldsons baker and took them back to the van to eat.

We then drove home, stopping at the Buffalo Farm shop on the way. There were some miniature goats there, and we bought some buffalo burgers.

Fife - Day 1

We left home in the campervan quite early, and drove to the Ruby Bay car park just outside Elie on the Fife coast. This has a number of motorhome bays, with a 24 hour toilet.

The way you pay for it is a bit inconvenient though. It's £15 for overnight 8pm to 8am, but you can't actually pay for that until 8pm. So if you want to stay for a normal 24 hour period, you have to buy a £2 day ticket, then pay £15 at 8pm. Then in the morning if you want to stay beyond 8am you have to buy another £2 day ticket, making £19 in all.

Anyway, it was beautifully sunny when we got there, and we set off on a walk northwards up the Fife Coastal Path.

After a couple of miles the next village you come to is St Monans. Just before it is the ruined Newark Castle.

On the edge of the village is St Monans Auld Kirk.

We walked to the harbour and had a wander round. Overlooking the harbour is the house where Scott had a lots of seaside holidays as a child, as it was owned by his cousins' family. It brings back a lot of memories.

We sat on a bench overlooking the harbour and had a sandwich.

Then we carried on out the other side of the village, where there is an open air swimming pool and the ruins of salt pans. In the past they used windmills to pump seawater into large pans, then a coal fire to evaporate off the water so they could harvest the salt.

We passed some cormorants sunning themselves on the rocks.

Next village is Pittenweem, which has an open air swimming pool that's been renovated in recent years, and is well used despite the temperature.

Then we walked past the harbour and fish market.

Beyond Pittenweem the path follows the edge of a golf course. We stopped at some rocks to have the rest of our lunch in the sun, it was pretty warm at this point.

As we approached Anstruther there was a display of knitted and crocheted poppies outside a church.

In Anstruther we had an ice cream from Scoop, which was very nice.

On the other side is the smaller village of Cellardyke which has a very picturesque and historic harbour.

We decided there wasn't enough light left in the day to walk as far as Crail, so we went a couple of miles further then headed to the main road to catch a bus back. There was an old dovecot in a field just before the road.

The bus was a bit late in coming but eventually arrived and took us back to Elie.

Later we left Oscar in the van and went to the Ship Inn for a drink. It was pitch dark at 6pm and there were no lights in the car park, we had to use torches to find our way out.

Back at the van we had ratatouille for dinner.

Glenmore - Day 3

It was very cold during the night, a hard frost and there was ice on the inside of our windscreen behind the insulated blinds. We were quite toasty with our gas heating though.

We packed up and left Glenmore, and drove up to the Cairngorm ski car park. It costs £3.50 a day to park there now.

We set off on our short walk to Coire an t-Sneachda. This is a mountain corrie situated at over 900 metres, just below the summit of Cairn Gorm itself. Like yesterday the weather was stunning.

The path is superb, there were quite a few other people doing the same. We passed some frozen ponds.

At the corrie itself we were out of the sun, shaded by the cliffs. It's a great setting though, after clambering over some boulders we got to the little lochans there.

We could see and hear ptarmigans there, they are in their winter white plumage already.

For our lunch stop we headed back down the path a bit, to get back into the sunshine. On the way back we could easily see the whole ridge we'd walked along yesterday.

We got back to the van and headed home, arriving in Dunblane just after 4pm.