Saturday 28th August 2021
After the challenges of the rough and remote coastline between Crail and St. Andrews, the Fife Coastal Path now deteriorated to become more like the abundant tarmac of the start of the trail. I had reached the golfing town of St. Andrews on the previous day, so now I caught a bus back there to resume my walk along the Fife Coastal Path that started with me passing the Old Course, which is the oldest golf course in the world, before settling down to walk along a cyclepath beside the A91 road. I was already finding this walk rather tedious as this part goes on for several miles, though for some of the way there was a line of trees between the path and the road, but this deteriorated to become a low hawthorn hedge, later a low wall, then a wire fence and eventually an unprotected path beside the road. All of this while crossing flat, open expanses of grassland with little or no view until finally I came to Guardbridge and crossed the fifteen century bridge where I had views across the supporting piers of the old railway viaduct over the River Eden.
The Fife Coastal Path makes use of the course of the old railway for its route through Guardbridge and provided me with me with a good off-road path, but all too soon I was back beside the road and branched off to take a minor road into the small town of Leuchars, which is dominated by the military base of Leuchars Station. This seemed rather intimidating with tall fences topped with barbed wire either side of the road and manned entrances, though the jet plane parked behind the entrance was very impressive. I followed the road around the base turning to the east to come out of Leuchars, until I eventually came to the end of the road and with one last look at the airfield I continued on a track that heads into Tents Muir. When the trail comes off the track I took to a delight path through extensive dunelands where there was a mixture of trees and grass with many marshland plants. This was an interesting terrain that compensated for the flat gradients on a path that took me across the wild landscape on boardwalks until I reached the much less diverse conifer plantation of Tentsmuir Forest.
I was now on wide forestry tracks and this wasn’t helped when I turned right onto a road where many cars seemed to pass me as I headed along the road to the busy car park for Kinshaldy Beach. Coming off the coastal path, I headed across the dunes and onto the beach, which was vast enough to provide plenty of space despite the large numbers of people, so I was able to find somewhere to sit and have my lunch. After eating, I headed up the sands enjoying the expansive views and slowly drifted towards the sea where I took in the gently lapping waters and took many photographs before heading back across the sands. Crossing the dunes again, I re-entered the forest, but I was not back at the car park or on the Fife Coastal Path. However, soon after entering the forest I found a red-topped post marking a trail that was much more interesting than the coastal path. While that follows wide forestry tracks, this trail takes an interesting route weaving through the trees and I thoroughly enjoyed following it until beside a Second World War observation post it takes a sharp left turn. At that point I headed back out of the forest to have a look across the dunes towards the distant sea, before taking the path back onto the coastal path beside an old ice house.
Now, I followed the trail along tedious wide tracks through the commercial forest, though never far from the edge up to Tentsmuir Point where I couldn’t resist the temptation to head out onto the sands once more where I was greeted by the sight of the wide expanse of Headwell Sands that incongruously had a herd of cows on it and was lined by concrete anti-tank blocks. Across the Firth of Tay, I could see the coastline of the county of Angus that seems heavily populated compared with the coastline of Fife that I had been enjoying all week. Resuming my walk along the trail I finally headed out of Tentsmuir Forest, to walk beside the coast with wide views across the estuary and with more concrete blocks lining the route. This took me into Tayport where the coastal path keeps to the edge of the coast passing through Tayport Links Caravan Park and along the Promenade to the harbour. I had considered ending the walk this day in Tayport, but since it was only three o’clock, I decided it would be best to keep going, so I headed out of Tayport on the route of an old railway line.
In something reminiscent of the start of the day, this later led to my walking beside a road, but now with the heavily developed coastline of the city of Dundee across the Firth of Tay. I continued beside this road under the Tay Road Bridge and into Newport-on Tay where I had decided to end the walk for the day leaving me with the same distance to walk on my final day as I had just walked on this day. However, first I had to find a bus, but that proved difficult especially after seeing a bus I should have caught but not realising until after it had passed me, which left me with an hour to wait for the next one. This was a very tedious walk with hardly any changes in gradient and the only highlight on the trail was while passing through the moorland of Tents Muir. Off-trail, the highlight was the Ice House Trail through Tentsmuir Forest that is marked with red-topped posts, but elsewhere the Fife Coastal Path keeps to wide tracks and pavements which is a great deterioration since its heights of my previous few days along the trail and I wasn’t hopeful about the last stage.
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