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Walking towards a new life in retirement

keithfmuir

31 December 2022|Thoughts about


When I was planning to retire, I wanted to use that as a way to raise money for two charities close to my family, namely BloodCancer UK and When You Wish Upon a Star. Firstly, I asked that work not give me any retirement presents but instead make a donation to BloodCancer UK. Secondly, I had planned to do an Arctic Trek to raise money for WYW. I felt this timing was my best chance to raise as much sponsorship as possible. This was going to entail a three-day, 70km walk in Finland at the end of Jan. Unfortunately the walk fell victim to covid restrictions and was cancelled. But I still wanted to do something that weekend as I'd had good success with my sponsorship and wanted to do something to earn that. The walk had taken on more psychological importance for me too as it sort of symbolised walking away from my old life and transitioning into a new one. So I looked at alternative local walks of a similar distance and decided to walk from my home in Kirkcaldy to my future new home in St Andrews. Rather than doing it in a straight line, I would do it along the Fife coastal path. I was initially going to do it alone but then a good friend asked if he could do it with me. I was very glad for the company. Below is an account of the walk.


Sam and Frodo's journey through Middle Earth (Fife!)


Well, that was a challenging weekend! Despite growing up in Fife and being to most of these places before, I’ve never walked the full length that we did this weekend. At almost every turn I was constantly taken aback by the beauty of the walk (Methil excepted). I am extremely grateful to everyone for their moral and financial support and between the walk and my retirement, I am delighted to say that I raised over £10,000 for these two charities. I really am grateful to everyone for helping my retirement make such a contribution to these two very worthy causes.


Day 1


The walk started easily enough on Friday with the first 25km from Kirkcaldy to Lower Largo. It was a pretty nice day, slightly chilly and overcast but easy walking conditions. There are few real challenges along the way – steep hills at Dysart and East Wemyss and some beach walking too. We had quite a lot of hard surface walking to get through Buckhaven, Methil and Leven which isn't the easiest on your feet. The hardest bit though was getting back out of the seat at the Railway Inn and walking up the hill to the hotel at the end. Thanks again to the owner there for her donation to our sponsorship.



Day 2


This was a different kettle of fish as we woke up to face storm Malik. Today was always planned as the longest day, with an estimated 30km to cover and it certainly proved to be a real dawn-to-dusk marathon. The stretch from Lundin to Dumbarnie dunes was really tough with the storm at full intensity. Fortunately, it was at our back or side for most of it, although it was seriously whipping up the sand, which was rather unpleasant. This is an absolutely stunning section of coastline though and you should definitely visit, just not in 60mph winds! After a couple of scary moments, we decided it just wasn’t safe to stay on the dune path in that wind so we headed a little inland to a farm track we saw over by Dumbarnie golf course. That required walking back into the wind though – quite a challenge that saw us both fall over and basically have to crawl along the ground for a bit as standing was just so hard. Eventually we made it to Elie, had a quick stop at the Ship Inn and then headed back out. The rest of the day was easier but it was long as Elie was only about a third of the way and this first section had taken much longer than expected due to the wind. From Elie the route took us through St Monans, Pittenweem, Anstruther, Cellardyke and then the last final slog to Crail. If you are ever in Pittenweem then visit “The New Larachmhor”, it’s a great little chippy, bar, café that serves the best local crab. They also donated the cost of our lunch to the sponsorship effort.



Day 3


We knew from our pre-walk research that today was going to be the most demanding technically and with my friend also picking up some nasty blisters on Saturday it really did prove to be a challenging day. The coastline changes quite dramatically as you move around from Crail and head towards St Andrews. Most challenging are the conditions under foot which are pretty uneven along the majority of the walk. There are lots of slippery conditions, areas where you have to scramble over rocks, sections where the path has been eroded away and you have to walk long stretches on sand. There are also three areas that can’t be passed at high tide and it was just pure luck that we got to them at the right time! We would have been in big trouble otherwise. Also, unlike the previous days, there are no towns to walk through, no places to have a quick break and cup of tea etc. The other big challenge in this section was the constant elevation changes with a lot of short, sharp climbs and descents to tackle. Remember we were walking with 10kg packs too.


The landmarks along this walk are the golf courses of Crail, Kingsbarns, The Fairmont and The Castle. Arriving at Kingsbarns gave me false optimism that we were getting close to St Andrews! I was hoping the famous cheese toasty shack would be open and the public toilets too (revenge of the Guinness), but unfortunately not! Shortly after this the path turns inland and eventually through farmland before heading back towards the coast. Never have I seen someone so grateful for the sight of a portable toilet in a field of cabbages! A real Pythonesque moment as the clouds parted and the filthy toilet was illuminated by a ray of sunlight (ok, maybe some artistic license there).


The last stretch was extremely tough. My friend was suffering with every step and if you know the area you will know there are lots of cliffs here. That results in some very sharp climbs in places as the path moves from sea level up the cliff and back several times. It was totally exhausting. But at almost every turn St Andrews was getting closer and it wasn’t too long before we were approaching the East Sands where adrenaline and euphoria got us through to the end. Well, that and the thought of a burger and pint at Brewdog and the chance to sit down!


The photos have been uploaded in a mad random order this time for some reason!


And then that was it, the walk was over. My family met us in town and we went for that well-earned burger and pint before heading home to recover. It was a fantastic weekend despite the challenges of the weather. It was also a very cathartic journey, not just into retirement but from my old life towards the new one. Raising so much money for charity along the way was an added bonus.

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