A Day in the Fife of Scotland

Hello again!

Our tour guide extraordinaire, Mhairi, has been at it again. Last Sunday she took us day-tripping around the southern bit of the Fife coast. For those who don't know, that's across the Firth of Forth from Edinburgh.

We visited Kirkcaldy first (Mhairi's home town, where her folks still live) and then on to Elie, where we met Mhairi's friends Fiona and Bernard and did the world famous (in Fife) Elie Chain Walk. It's a really fun coastal scramble with great views across the Firth, and it gets its name from the big stainless steel chains that have been placed in strategic locations so you don't fall off! We had made sure that we weren't too far after the low tide to avoid any unneccesary excitement - I think if I do it again I'll time it a bit later to get the added fun of the waves lapping at my feet.

Mhairi then took us around some of the small Fife fishing villages, where we met up with Fiona and Bernard again for an icecream. The villages were cool, they looked very Mediterranean with their pastel-coloured houses lined up along the waterfront. Most of the fisihing industry here has died so there's not too much happening these days.

Our final stop on the tour was St Andrews ("The Home of Golf"). We didn't have all that long but it was enough time to quickly check out the golf course (along with the most photographed footbridge in the world - we didn't take a photo), the castle and the abbey.

Braemar

We headed off to Braemar at the weekend. Braemar is a small town in the Cairngorm Mountains about two hours' drive from Edinburgh. There must be a few hundred people living there and it certainly doesn't have a touristy feel. Mhairi reckons that's because the train doesn't go there - Aviemore (a town on the other side of the Cairngorms) is apparently much bigger and more touristy for that very reason. I thought it looked cosy and peaceful and fitted my image of a Scottish highland town very nicely. If you would like to know more about it, check out http://www.braemarscotland.co.uk/

It took us a wee while to get there. Mhairi had been playing in a tennis tournament (where she got to the semis in the doubles, yay!) and I'd had a job interview out in the wops, so we didn't manage to leave until rush hour. Once we were over the Firth of Forth road bridge (an impressive structure) we were away laughing but just getting that far seemed to take half the journey.

Scotland/NZ difference no. 1: they have traffic lights to enter, and move around, multi-laned roundabouts. Hence it can take you 5 mins to actually pass through a roundabout. I'm no traffic engineer, but this seems to defeat the purpose of having a roundabout in the first place.

On arrival in Braemar, we were fed by Mhairi's parents (Heather is a fantastic cook) and we enjoyed their warm hospitality all weekend. Thank you! I should mention that although Sylvia described the place as a 'bach' in the previous post, it is in fact a modern and comfortable house and we spent the weekend in comfort even though the weather was less than perfect outside the double glazing and hot log fire of the house.

Scotland/NZ difference no. 2: Every house here (and in North America, and in fact the rest of the world) is well insulated and has double glazing. That it is legal to build a house in the cooler parts of NZ with only single glazing is criminal, no wonder our houses are always cold and we have to spend a fortune heating them.

It was mostly just overcast and raining lightly, not enough to deter two hardy Kiwis and a Scot from enjoying the outdoors. Mhairi was an excellent tour guide, and if she ever got bored taking us to places she'd been to heaps, she never showed it. When she didn't quite know the background of a place or place name she was quite happy to make something up, which could be corrected by her father once we got back to the house.

On the first day we explored a little locally on foot, climbing high enough to see over the village and its setting. We walked a bit of a loop and came back through the village, visiting a shop called Braemar Mountain Sports which I had to be dragged away from before I spent any of the money I didn't have. We couldn't see any of the munros (mountains over 3,000') due to the low cloud but there was enough scenery in the mist-clad lower slopes, patches of broadleaf woodland and caledonian pine forest, and the extensive heather to impress us. I caught the occasional tantalising glimpse through the cloud of snow on more distant peaks.

We also visited the Linns of Dee and Coich (a linn being a gorge, and the Dee and Coich being two local rivers). The linns were spectacular, with a substantial river flowing through a slot perhaps a metre wide. Partway through this drive we stopped off at Mar Lodge, a stately home that has been converted to flash holiday apartments, and the site of the ceilidh held after the annual Highland Games at Braemar.

On Sunday, after another lazy start, we took advantage of the marginally better weather to go on a bike ride to visit Balmoral estate. Some riding on the roads was necessary, but Mhairi used her local knowledge to take us on lots of 4WD tracks through forest and farmland. Partway through the journey we stopped at "Honka House", a log cabin next to a pond on the estate where the royal family picnics. For a royal building it was surprisingly basic and reminded me of a category 2 backcountry hut in NZ. We ended up coming into Balmoral the back way and biking right past the palace.

Scotland/NZ difference no. 3: we Kiwis consider ourselves a fairly egalitarian society, and tend to look down on the Brits with their upper class and lots of land locked up in "estates". I think it's because we're lucky to have so much land in crown ownership in New Zealand that we tend to ignore the fact that there is actually pretty dismal public access to private land. There is a historical tradition in Scotland (now enshrined in legislation) of the "right to roam" on private land, and you may be surprised to know that the owners of these highland estates are quite happy to have people walking, biking and riding horses all over them as long as they're sensible. Here we were, strolling all around the Queen's residence in Scotland, chatting away in her garden, and we were allowed to be here without paying a cent. It wouldn't happen in New Zealand. I kept looking over my shoulder in case someone was chasing us with a rake or something.


Scotland/NZ difference no. 4: our cows don't look like this. I wish they did. Some of the highland coos had such long fringes that it's a wonder they can see anything at all.

Scotland the brave

Now we've been in Edinburgh three weeks and we are loving it. The job hunt is continuing (although it looks like I'm sorted now) but the rest of the time we're lazing about and checking out Edinburgh. Mark has also taken to baking, although, unfortunately, ingredients are hard to find as it's obviously not a normal Scottish pastime.

We also went on a daytrip to the seaside resort of North Berwick, went to the Beltane fire festival, have been orienteering twice (and discovered more than we needed to know about Scottish stinging nettles), have watched Mhairi in a tournament, played soccer with the locals and have been on a Scottish pub crawl.

Apart from the cool old buildings, the endless double-decker buses and the funny accents, there are a number of other differences from NZ:

- The bike lanes are awesome. They dedicate whole pathways to cycling.
- Helmets are not compulsory, and it feels really weird to bike without one (so I got one anyway)
- Food comes in silly sizes (like tiny vegemite jars - what's the point?)
- Brown sauce.
- Cider. Yummy.
- Cobbled streets. Uncomfortable for biking.
- The severe lack of cafes and the huge number of pubs.
- The enormous white swans.

We're going on our first overnight trip away from Edinburgh this weekend, up to Mhairi's parents' bach at Braemar. Hopefully that will inspire some futher stories and photos!