Day 6 - St Andrews

What a gorgeous morning. Jonathan was up at 630am sending up his drone then retreating to the van quick incase anyone heard it landing.

We went off for showers and then had cereal for breakfast. Jonathan put drone up again as the light had improved and then we packed up ready for the drive to St. Andrew’s.

Before leaving we dumped our waste water at the service point, I emptied the toilet and Jonathan filled up with fresh water. Then we hit the road.

We drove along the scenic route to St. Andrew’s, past Loch Leven, through places such as Crook of Devon, Rumbling Bridge and Scotlandwell. The land is amazingly flat apart from the rocky hills that surround it. The sun was shining so we could see for miles.

The drive into St. Andrew’s was beautiful. We drove to the West Sands Beach Car Park which as the name suggests was right on the beach next to one of the many St. Andrew’s golf courses. It was a large flat grassy area where it was free to park as long as we left before sunset.

We immediately walked down to the beach which is enormous. The views were incredibly and no amount of photos will ever quite capture it all.

Jonathan had decided we were going to recreate the film Chariots of Fire as the running on the beach scene was filmed here. I was resistant as it involved running but eventually I was persuaded. I don’t do running. 1. I don’t like it and 2. Everything jiggles when I do run!

Filming over we walked up into the town and stopped for a coffee and blueberry scone. I think I deserved it. We visited a few golf shops on the way back to the golf course but couldn’t find a fridge magnet.

St. Andrew’s is often described as the home of golf and is obviously world famous but we were able to just wander around and across the fairways (as long as we watched for players teeing off). It’s incredible to have such access to the whole course.

In fact there are 8 public courses as part of ‘St. Andrew’s’ with the Old Course being the championship one. We walked up to the Swilcan Bridge on the 18th fairway where there was a short queue to have a photo taken.

Just as we got within 5 people of the front we were all called to side for a couple of golfers to play through. After they had passed we were able to line up again, in the same order and wait for our photo opportunity.

The couple behind us offered to take ‘a photo of y’all’ but I didn’t know what ‘y’all’ was so I offered to take a photo of just Jonathan. She still passed me her phone little knowing my photographic skills are basic.

I took a few photos of Jonathan on the bridge though apparently I didn’t include the clubhouse. He then took photos of the ‘y’all couple’.

We continued our walk up to the hotel and then crossed the fairway to the ‘new course’. We spoke to one of the Marshalls who explained that the hotel had been hit 3 times in the last hour. The last time the gardeners didn’t weeding of the hotel garden they found 300 golf balls!

We went into the shop within the New Course Clubhouse and bought a fridge magnet and some golf balls. Then we picked up the drone and headed to the beach so Jonathan could get some aerial photos.

At 2pm we stopped at the van for some sandwiches and worked out a scenic route back along some of the coast.

We drove out past St. Andrew’s Cathedral ruins (something to visit next time) and headed along the coast to Crail and then Largo Bay. It was beautiful.

We stopped in Leslie at a large M&S Foodhall where we bought more wine, cider and washing up liquid.

We arrived back at camp at 5pm. Jonathan started editing his Chariots of Dire film whilst I wrote up the blog. I cooked up pasta for tea whilst Jonathan continued work on his masterpiece. All to the appropriate music.

I thought the final epic would be too big to upload onto this blog but alas it might just work! Enjoy!

We spent the evening watching TV with a new M&S wine in a bag, as the rain came down. We went to bed at 1030.Read more