Walk 168 -- Tayport to Dundee

Ages: Colin was 65 years and 59 days. Rosemary was 62 years and 201 days.
Weather: Steady, hard rain all day. But no wind and quite warm.
Location: Tayport to Dundee.
Distance: 4 miles.
Total distance: 1401 miles.
Terrain: Gravel/grass path which led down to the beach. Shingle walking which got progressively harder. So we climbed over two barbed wire fences and went up a steep grassy track to get back to the tarmacked cycle path we had intended to be on all along! After that, all concrete.
Tide: Going out.
Rivers: No.101, the River Tay. We crossed on Britain’s longest road bridge which is 1½miles long. It spans Britain’s biggest (not longest) river which discharges more water into the sea than the Severn and Thames combined.
Ferries: None.
Piers: None.
Kissing gates: None.
Pubs: ‘The Counting House’ (Weatherspoons) where Colin drank Harriestoun’s ‘Ruby Murray’ and Cairngorm ‘Wild Cat’. I had a Czech lager — ‘Herold Blond’. We also had our lunch there — out of the rain!
‘Historic Scotland’ properties: None.
Ferris wheels: None.
Diversions: None.
How we got there and back: We were staying in a holiday cottage in the village of Craigrothie. In view of the weather, we went on to Plan B and curtailed the original planned Walk. We drove to Tayport, parked at the harbour where we parked yesterday, and started the Walk from there.
At the end, we found the pub and had our lunch in the dry. Then we had a quick look round the centre of Dundee, and didn’t find much of interest. So we made our way to the bus station which was very crowded and not exactly a pleasant place to wait three quarters of an hour on a very wet Summer’s day. (Perhaps we were just feeling tired and jaded, though we were elated at having achieved fourteen hundred miles of the Trek!) We caught the last bus back to Tayport, though it was not even four o’clock in the afternoon. We drove straight back to our cottage in Craigrothie.
The next day we packed up our stuff and drove home to Malvern. As the Malvern Hills appeared on the horizon we both shouted “Home!” We don’t miss Bognor one jot!

What a thoroughly miserable day! It rained hard for the whole of our last Walk this session, and the sky was dark and grey. Colin had to hold his umbrella over the camera for every photo that was taken, so we didn’t take many.
From the harbour we walked westwards out of Tayport. We expected to follow a cycleway all the way to the Tay Bridge, but instead the gravel path became grassy, then it deteriorated, became overgrown and we ended up next to the shingle beach. There was a ‘sort-of’ path along a grass bank at first, but we found we were walking too close to a barbed wire fence for comfort. This got worse as the bank became more and more eroded, so we went on to the beach because it was easier. We passed a small redundant lighthouse, and a flowering shrub which was trying to remind us it was supposed to be Summer!
There were some beautiful stones washed up on the beach. It was tempting to gather loads to take home, but in the end we just looked at them and left them where they were. The Geology of Scotland is very old and extremely complex. Rocks get washed down the river from the hills miles away, so we don’t know where they originated. We think the one we photographed was a granite.
It was only about a mile to the bridge, but the beach got impossible before we got there. We reverted to the grass bank, then climbed over a barbed wire fence which was shielded with sacking so it looked as if we were supposed to go that way. But we had another barbed wire fence to negotiate, and this one was not shielded at all. However, we got over it without scratching ourselves or tearing any clothing (remember we were both fully kitted up in our wet-weather gear — expensive wet-weather gear in my case!) A grass track took us up to the cycleway where there was a ladder stile. This again gave us the impression that we were supposed to go that way, so why did we have to climb over two barbed wire fences in order to get there?

We walked along to a picnic site at the end of the bridge where there was a toilet block, and we could also have bought some hot greasy food — but we didn’t. There was a sculpture that consisted of coloured ribbons (I think) and a memorial to four men who lost their lives building the Tay Road Bridge in the 1960s. But only their initials and surnames were on the memorial, we did think they should have put their Christian names on. It seemed so impersonal the way it was done.

There was another illustrated board with the title: BEAUTIFUL RAILWAY BRIDGE OF THE SILV’RY TAY. A map was spread across the middle, and several pictures were explained with the following paragraphs:

Follow the swirl of the tide around the broken pillars that mark the ninety lives that were taken away. On 28 December 1879, the old rail bridge collapsed in a storm as a train was passing over.

Look down from your airy saddles as commuters in their metal containers head for their workplaces in Dundee.

Imagine the wash of the ferries that once carried the barons to their fortunes of jute.

Raw jute was once made into a cheap cloth for sacks, hessian, canvas and floor cloth in the Dundee mills.

And so we walked on to the longest road bridge in Britain! It spans the biggest river in this country, for the Tay discharges more water into the sea than the Thames and Severn combined! The bridge is one and a half miles long, and it has seventy-five numbered lamp-posts. We could work out when we were a third of the way across — for it was at that point that we passed the 1400 mile mark. Fourteen hundred miles along the coast from Bognor Regis — we can hardly believe it!

The footpath goes along the centre of the bridge, fenced off from the speeding traffic either side. This meant we were walking between streams of vehicles whizzing by in each direction, and it never stopped raining hard at any time during the forty minutes it took us to walk over. It was exhilarating, but it was also pretty miserable.

At the further end there was a metal staircase which led us down to the riverside, and also a lift which looked as if it was redundant. We looked at a couple of plaques. One told us that work commenced on the bridge on March 29^th 1963. and it took three and a half years to build. At 7365 feet in length, it is the longest road bridge in Britain. The other told us the bridge was opened by the Queen on August 18^th 1966.

Plan A had been to park several miles out of Dundee to the East, catch a combination of two buses to get back to Tayport, have a pub lunch in Dundee after the first four miles of the Walk, then continue to the car. Plan B had been to park in Tayport, continue the Walk after a pub lunch in Dundee, then catch a combination of buses to get back to the car in Tayport. In view of the weather, we opted for Plan C — which was to get to a pub pronto and stay there!

That ended Walk no.168, we shall pick up Walk no.169 next time in Dundee at the end of the Tay Bridge It was half past twelve, so the Walk had taken us less than two and a half hours. We found our way to Colin’s chosen pub, Weatherspoons, passing some black penguins on the way(?) We enjoyed good beer and a nice meal in the dry. It was still raining when we came out. The Catholic Cathedral — when we eventually found it — was locked. The Protestant one wasn’t very interesting, it was too modern for our taste. So we went to the bus station and found we had three quarters of an hour to wait for the bus to Tayport — the last one of the day at only 15.35! Eventually we got back to the car, had a cup of tea and returned to our holiday cottage in Craigrothie.

The next day we packed up and drove home to Malvern.

Walk 167 -- Leuchars to Tayport

Ages: Colin was 65 years and 58 days. Rosemary was 62 years and 200 days.
Weather: Sunny and warm, clouding over later.
Location: Leuchars to Tayport.
Distance: 11 miles.
Total distance: 1397 miles.
Terrain: Concrete. Gravel tracks. Grassy paths. Sandy beach. Dunes. Woodland. Nearly all flat.
Tide: Out.
Rivers: No.99, Lead Burn. No.100, Scotscraig Burn. Both in Tayport.
Ferries: None.
Piers: None.
Kissing gates: None.
Pubs: ‘Bell Rock Tavern’ in Tayport where Colin had their only real ale — Marston’s Burton Bitter — and I had a ginger beer.
‘Historic Scotland’ properties: None.
Ferris wheels: None.
Diversions: None.
How we got there and back: We were staying in a holiday cottage in the village of Craigrothie. We drove to Tayport where we parked at the harbour overlooking the Tay estuary. We walked through the town, buying pasties at a local butchers, to the bus stop where we had to wait twenty minutes for a bus to Leuchars.
At the end, we went to the pub which was very near our parked car. Colin was disappointed because they only had one very ‘run-of-the-mill’ beer on, so he only had a half. We drove on to the picnic site at the end of the Tay Bridge, and established that we can walk across it — that wasn’t clear from the map. We had some tea, then drove back to our cottage at Craigrothie.

The weather was much better for our Walk today, sunny and fairly warm — we were quite relieved. We had a look at the church in Leuchars before we left the village. It is an interesting shape on the outside, a bit like a wedding cake with a pepperpot on top! It was built in the 12th century, and has decorated and interlocked Norman arches on the outside. The inside is rather plain, apparently it has been ‘improved’ several times much to its detriment. I love the round Norman arches on a church, it is such a satisfying shape, somehow. The old Norman part at the far eastern end of the church is beautiful! But this church seems to be inside out, with the Norman arches on the outside instead of the inside!
We took the lane eastwards past the school. I thought the Scottish schools had started their Summer holidays, but apparently not so. We passed a property with an ornate gateway, and skirted round the boundary fence of the RAF base. We managed to find the path which took us round the end of the runway and into the forest. The engine noise of the jets about to take off was LOUD! It reminded me of my childhood days in Farnborough, and we were glad to walk away through the wood. But the noise pursued us — as a couple of jets took off I thought my eardrums would burst!

We came to the beach which was beautiful and remote. The tide was out so we started to walk along the sand — but it was too soft to walk comfortably. We moved further out towards the sea and for a while it became more solid underfoot, but then it got soft again and made our legs ache too much. So we returned to the dunes, and sat on one to eat our pasties in the sunshine. After all the cold and wet weather we have been experiencing recently, it was really pleasant to sit in the sun and feel warm!

We decided that the beach was too sinky, and so went into the dunes to look for the path which was marked on our map. It was a bit swampy — and hilly — and softy-sandy — and the path seemed elusive. We came across a notice warning us that there were ground-nesting birds in the undergrowth, so we had to avoid that area. We passed lots of beautiful dune flowers, including orchids — it was brilliant!
We also encountered a rusty dome and hadn’t a clue what it was. However, I was brought up near Aldershot, and had ingrained into me from a very early age NEVER to touch any weird-looking rusty object I found on the ground. So we took a photo of it and gave it a wide berth.

At last we found the path! It led us northwards into the forest — but that was where we encountered the flies! They were horrid — buzzing in our ears, eyes and trying to get inside our mouths. We hurriedly doused ourselves in ‘jungle juice’ and walked on as quickly as we could. We seemed to walk out of them fairly quickly, which was a relief. The woods turned out to be a lot more pleasant than we had anticipated. It had looked so artificial on the map with row upon row of conifer trees, but they are long-established and we found we were rather enjoying ourselves. Not all the trees were conifers, there was quite a variety although it was obviously a man-made forest — by no means ancient natural woodland. As well as the wild flowers we encountered — the roses smelt particularly gorgeous — we came across an interesting variety of fungi.

We crossed a footbridge and reached a picnic site where there were a few people about. But as always, as soon as we left the environs of the car park, we were completely on our own.

We were now on the official footpath-cum-cycleway, but further north it was not all that easy to follow. We found a log where we sat to eat our sandwiches.

Further north we came across an ice house — it is now a home to bats! We didn’t see any of them as it was the wrong time of day, but a notice told us it was now a protected site because of them living inside it. A board informed us:

Welcome to the Ice House. Built in the 19th century to store locally caught salmon, this stone building now forms a focal point for walkers and cyclists in Tentsmuir Forest. To keep the salmon fresh, ice was dragged here from ships in Tayport harbour and placed within the thick dark walls of the Ice House. In winter ice was also produced from the nearby ice ponds.

There was also what looked like a tombstone nearby, but it was so eroded and covered in moss we couldn’t read the inscription.

Eventually, with lots of twisting between trees, we got to the ‘corner’ where we turned West into the Tay estuary. We sat on a bench with a view across the estuary to Dundee and Monifieth to eat our chocolate. According to our map the official path led well within the forest, but we found we could walk on a dune path along the edge of the trees, then on the beach. The path led us past a warning notice of a gas pipeline underground, round a sports’ field, through a caravan site, and straight into Tayport. We were well pleased.

A board told us about Tayport:

Tayport began as a pre-Roman cluster of huts round a ferry terminal with no pier and a name, Ferry-Port-on-Craig, which suggests passengers and animals had to negotiate bare rocks.

By the mid-15th century, Ferry-Port-on-Craig had accumulated enough strategic significance for James II to build a castle, but subsequent eras ‘borrowed’ from it and no visible stone remains.

Ferry-Port-on-Craig became Tayport in 1846 when the railway arrived, complete with harbour and paddle steamers with railway lines on deck. Among the ferry’s most famous passengers was American President Ulysses S Grant, whose passion for engineering had led him to inspect the world-famous but doomed Tay Bridge in 1877. The ferry lasted until 1939, and the railway until the opening of the Tay Road Bridge in 1966.
Today’s Tayport sustains a robust community spirit, a quiet historic pride, and a landscape setting that embraces the estuary shoreline and Tentsmuir Forest and National Nature Reserve.

But not all the residents of Tayport are happy with this romanticised version of life in the town today! The next day we discovered the LAST BUS from Dundee to Tayport leaves Dundee just after half past three each afternoon! As one disgruntled passenger remarked, “They expect us all to be tucked up in bed with our cocoa by tea-time!” What kind of a social life is that, especially for the younger generations? In yesteryear it appears we could have taken a ferry from Tayport across to Broughty Ferry or even Arbroath, missing out Dundee altogether. That would have saved us miles of walking!

We were not able to walk the harbour arm because it was private property. We were not sorry! We were really quite tired. The harbour was full of expensive-looking private yachts, it no longer seems to be a working harbour. We watched a pair of swans with five growing cygnets — they have done very well. Then we came to our car which was parked on the harbour wall.

That ended Walk no.167, we shall pick up Walk no.168 next time on the harbour-side in Tayport. It was half past four, so the Walk had taken us six hours. We dumped our rucksacks and went to the ‘real ale’ pub which was nearby. But, unusually, we were not made to feel very welcome — it was as if we had intruded on a private meeting. There was only one beer on, and that was not very exciting. So we drank up quickly and left. We drove along to the Tay Bridge, just to establish that there is a footpath across it. Then we returned to our holiday cottage in Craigrothie.

Walk 166 -- St Andrews to Leuchars

Ages: Colin was 65 years and 56 days. Rosemary was 62 years and 198 days.
Weather: Mostly dry with some sun — but BLACK skies!
Location: St Andrews, via Guardbridge, to Leuchars.
Distance: 7 miles.
Total distance: 1386 miles.
Terrain: 100% pavement bashing. Flat.
Tide: Coming in.
Rivers: No.96, Kinness Burn, in St Andrews. No.97, River Eden, at Guardbridge. No.98, Motray Water, also at Guardbridge.
Ferries: None.
Piers: None.
Kissing gates: None.
Pubs: ‘Central Bar’ in St Andrews where we again we drank Theakston’s ‘Black Bull bitter’ and Houston’s ‘Killellan’.
‘Historic Scotland’ properties: None — we saw them the other day!
Ferris wheels: None.
Diversions: None.
How we got there and back: We were staying in a holiday cottage in the village of Craigrothie. We drove to Leuchars where we couldn’t park near the church because there was a funeral going on. We found a place in a nearby lane. We walked out to the main road and caught a bus to St Andrews. There we walked through the town, visiting the pub as we passed, to the waterfront where we finished Walk 164.
At the end, Colin moved the car from the lane to the church as it was pleasanter there and the car park was empty. We had some tea, then drove back to our cottage at Craigrothie.

After yesterday’s marathon there was no way I was in a fit state to get up early for another Walk. Since today’s planned Walk was short and easy, we decided to have a lie-in and do it this afternoon. It was raining when we reached St Andrews so we went to the pub for a drink, then to a beach shelter on East Sands to eat our very late lunch. AT LAST it stopped raining, but we were surrounded by black skies for the whole of the Walk. We got going at twenty to four — very late!

We walked the length of the stone pier where there was the inevitable fisherman on the end, then proceeded past the ruined Cathedral with its tower and the Castle with its mines and counter-mines. Just thinking about those men digging away, then stopping to listen and digging away in a different direction always brings a smile to my face. I think it’s the funniest historical story I’ve heard in a long time — a bit like a pantomime act, “He’s behind you!” “Oh no he isn’t!” “Oh yes he is!” etc. St Andrews seemed to be full of foreign teenagers and Americans, I wonder if they appreciated the humour of that ridiculous situation back in the 16^th century.

There was a cannon on the clifftop near the Castle, and a monument to the men executed in St Andrews for their Protestant beliefs. A board nearby names some of them:—

Patrick Hamilton promoted the doctrines of Martin Luther. Henry Forrest owned a New Testament in English. Walter Myln was burnt at the stake – at the age of 82 – for advocating married clergy and condemning the corrupt practices of pilgrimages. George Wishart was burnt for defying the Catholic Church. Their cause succeeded, however, for St Andrews played a leading role in the Reformation of 1560 which rejected the authority of the Pope.

This area of St Andrews is called the ‘Bow Butts’. A board nearby explained the origin of this name:—

The distance from archer to target is a ‘butt’. Medieval archers practised here for battle. Competitions – with University encouragement – were held until the 18^th century.

Archers often deserted their bows for golf clubs. This caused kings to ban the game – and football too – in 1457 and twice thereafter. However, by the 1500s, golf was left to become Scotland’s national sport.

And so we emerged into ‘The Home of Golf’ — St Andrews world-famous golf courses! There was golf to the right of us and golf to the left of us — everywhere we looked there was golf, every shop we could see was a golf shop. We were pleased to see quite young children playing on some of the courses, it is a game that appeals to all ages. Yet another board told us all about it:—

St Andrews people’s right to play golf on the links was confirmed in 1553 when the Archbishop acknowledged their right to use the links for ‘golf, futeball, shuting and all games’. Today’s courses are controlled by the Links Trust on behalf of the town.

The Old, the New, the Jubilee, the Eden and the Strathtyrum Courses have 18 holes, Balgove has nine. Visitors are welcome to all.

The Society of St Andrews Golfers was set up in 1754 to organise an annual competition. Eighty years later it became the Royal and Ancient Golf Club, and built the clubhouse in 1854. Around 1897 the R&A became the governing body for the rules of golf in all countries except the US, Canada and Mexico. It is still a private club with 1800 members.

We decided not to walk along West Sands because it is a dead end and we were tired. We did consider, for a fleeting moment, walking along the golf road to the end of the sand spit, then making our way back along the dunes where there is no path on the other side. But this is St Andrews hallowed golf links, and we didn’t think we would be very popular even though Scottish golfers are not nearly so snobby as their English counterparts. Also, the black skies threatened rain at any moment, and we didn’t want to be caught out on a sand spit in a torrential downpour. (As it turned out, the rain held off and we even had a bit of sunshine, but the clouds lurked threateningly all around.) We decided to follow the tarmacked cycle/walking route which was tedious but easy. Notices told us that it would be closed in a few days time for a whole month so a temporary grandstand could be erected for the ‘Ladies Open’. So we were lucky to get through.

We went into ‘route-march’ mode for most of the Walk. When the cycle/walking route came alongside the main road we were shielded from the traffic by a hedge, so it wasn’t too bad. We passed a pretty cottage whose nameplate told us it used to be a toll house. Every so often — in fact far too often — jets screamed across the sky very low as they took off and landed at Leuchars RAF base. Even though I was born and brought up in Farnborough and so I’m somewhat immune to the noise of aircraft, I couldn’t live with that level of noise every day. We both felt sorry for all the people who live in the area, and have no choice.
We arrived in Guardbridge and stood by a gate (as there was nowhere to sit down) to eat our chocolate. The black skies had turned even blacker, so we both put on our overtrousers in preparation for the expected downpour. But it didn’t happen, and we just got hot. We crossed the river by the old bridge, which was between the modern road bridge and the pillars which once supported the old railway bridge. A board told us about the bridge we had just crossed:—

The River Eden provided both a source of transport and a barrier to be crossed. Bishop Henry Wardlaw completed this stone bridge in 1419, to keep open the lucrative pilgrim trail to St Andrews. It was built under a papal indulgence that gave spiritual rewards to the many pilgrims who gave their labour and skills for free. (Sounds like a medieval scam to me!) Its six-arched span across a tidal river was a major feat of engineering that was still carrying heavy traffic as late as 1938.

The next bit of land looked a bit derelict to us. But a board told us:—

The paper mill stands on reclaimed land under which lies the old port for Cupar. Ships sailed here from ports all over Europe with cargoes like bone and coal, and left with whisky, grain or potatoes. The pillars in the foreground carried the railway, opened in 1852 and closed in1969. It was built by Thomas Bouch, whose massive Tay bridge collapsed in 1879. The railway helped the local economy, and led to an expansion of the village of Guardbridge.

We passed a car with huge twin exhaust pipes which also had a ridiculously large spoiler on its back (it made us laugh, it looked so daft) and crossed Motray Water on the road bridge. We should have crossed on the old bridge there, but the modern road bridge was nearer the sea! We then crossed the road and walked in the playing fields, which were distinctly soggy underfoot, because it was quieter away from the traffic.

We forked right and walked into the village of Leuchars. We passed the entrance to RAF Leuchars where notices warned us:—

This is a prohibited area under the terms of the Official Secrets Act. Unauthorised persons will be arrested and prosecuted.

Sorry for breathing! We kept being passed by young RAF personnel, both men and women, out jogging. They all looked a lot more fit than we felt! We walked to the unusual looking church in the village centre.

That ended Walk no.166, we shall pick up Walk no.167 next time by the church in Leuchars. It was a quarter to seven, so the Walk had taken us just over three hours. The funeral, which had been taking place when we tried to park the car, was over and the mourners gone. So Colin retrieved the car from the dark and muddy lane, and parked at a much more pleasant spot by the church. We had our tea, and then drove back to our cottage in Craigrothie via the supermarkets in Cupar.