Log No 24. Mon 22nd Apr 2013 - St Andrews to Tay Bridge, 17 miles (428 miles walked)

The day got off to a poor start, I was in plenty of time to catch the 8.25 to St Andrews.

It was a grey, overcast day and it was still a cold wind with a threat of rain. Anyway, I waited and waited and waited ... eventually a wife came up a farm road to wait with me.

She was catching the 9.25, I said I had been waiting an hour for the earlier bus and showed her my timetable. She had a quick look and said I had been looking at the Saturday schedule!!! A bit too much forward planning there then!

I finally set off from St Andrews at 10.00, just aswell it was to be an easy 17 miles.

The first section was cycleway along the A91, going by the 'Old Course' of St Andrews golf for a bit before crossing the River Eden at Guardbridge.

There was a lot of activity over Leuchars Airfield with pairs of planes buzzing about.

Turning right through Guardbridge and coming into Leuchars I came across a crowd of folk with binoculars and cameras. Apparently there was an exercise on today.

I went past the fenced off RAF accommodation houses then turned east along the north perimeter of the airfield, passing units of army first aiders before heading into the trees of Tentsmuir.

Once in the trees I stopped for a sandwich at 12.20 and during the break heard what I presumed was part of the exercise with a series of explosions and gunfire, I never saw anything.

I was following signs for the Fife Coastal Path and this joined up with the cycleway I was on earlier.

After 2 hours I finally came out of the woods and saw the coast.
I suppose I could have come out of the trees and walked 5 miles on the sand but I took the easy option.

My exciting day was nearly done, thank goodness, the only wildlife I had seen all day was a few horses and the wood was near silent.

I was quickly through Tayport and at the bus stop at the south end of the Tay Bridge in good time to catch the 16.03 back to St Andrews.

The sun had come out during the afternoon but the wind had also picked up again.

Not much of a coast walk today.

I had heard there was a section along the FCP that required you to hold onto some chain links to get across some rocky bits but I had stuck pretty religously to the signs and never found them.