Thursday 24 June 2010

June Bugs

I realised that I prepped photos for this post two weeks ago and then never posted. This, then, will be brief, but a post.

About two weekends ago, Isaac surprised me in the morning by suggesting we hike to the lovely town of Crail. Crail is a fishing village a little south of St. Andrews, and can be reached by walking along the edge of the North Sea on the Fife Coastal Path. We packed a hearty lunch and headed up the cliffs beside our house, anticipating about nine miles of good walking before we stopped for ice cream and headed home again.

This is the view from the top of the cliffs that loom above and near our house, overlooking St. Andrews:

We passed a rock formation known as the Rock and Spindle (which, some of you may remember, Isaac climbed last fall), and did a little scrambling to reach the lovely view shown below. Note how much smaller St. Andrews has become! We were still only about two miles down the path at this point:

Eventually we reached another rock formation known as Buddo's Rock. This one is known for the huge cleft down the middle of the rock. We stopped here to eat lunch, which was delicious and much needed.

Here's a view from the top of the hill just past Buddo's rock. It was our last view of St. Andrews before the path turned inland and crossed a peninsula that would block our view of St. Andrews. There's also a golfer somewhere on the top of the cliff here.

Around this point, we started to get tired (3 miles in!) and eventually discovered that it was actually twelve miles to Crail, so I snapped only a few more photos, choosing to conserve my energy and plod dully ahead instead. We did arrive after about six hours of good hiking (and one more snack break) and feasted on fish & chips before getting the bus back to St. Andrews. All in all, a very good time.
Last weekend, in between preparations for the visit of some friends from Albuquerque and other Western USA destinations, Isaac and I cycled up a formidable hill located just beside our home and had tea and scones at a strawberry farm atop the hill, overlooking the North Sea. Here's the view (and food!) we enjoyed that afternoon:

That's all for now, folks.