Friday 8th September 2023

Due to family things, we haven’t been away in four weeks!

We were last in St Andrews in August last year, detouring there on our way home from Forfar to get to the legendary “Cheesy Toast Shack” on the sea front (which is definitely worth detouring from Forfar to Glasgow for!)

At the time, we’d looked up and spotted the characteristic green of static caravans perched high on the cliff above the sea, and said “oh, it’d be nice to be there”, sure enough, Gayle organised it!

It’s been hot all week in Glasgow, and after a sweltering 2hr drive, we made it to “St Andrews Holiday Park”, overlooking the picturesque town of St Andrews in Fife.

Our pitch was 64, the hard-standing is narrow, but there is a large grassy area between pitches, ideal for the weather we’d had all week.

We didn’t get the most level pitch, there’s a strong tilt towards the sea, and even on the highest level, it couldn’t quite counteract it, never mind our natural forward tilt from the Peugeot van.

We arrived, setup the awning chairs and table, and had several tumblers of cold water, we were rested, but hungry.

There’s an onsite pizza place and bar, and with the Scotland vs Cyprus game on, we wandered round.

We got a nice table outside, shaded from the early evening sun, ordered a cocktail and a pint o’ Tennent’s, and a couple of burgers from the menu, it wasn’t particularly busy, but it was filling up with folks for the footie.

It was a beautiful sunset over the town, with the various spires silhouetted against the evening sun, it really felt like a holiday location.

The burgers were tasty, but we were exhausted, and the bar was full, so we couldn’t really watch the game, so we wandered back to the van, and watched the second last episode of Wonderfalls, the internet was a bit patchy on our van wireless device, something that was to happen several times.

We definitely needed the fan to cool down enough for sleep, the USB-rechargeable fan is definitely a must in summer!

In the morning, the wireless was working, so we caught up on some our favourite YouTubers and had a light breakfast of welsh rarebit cheese melted onto toasted muffins, very nice.

I tried my hand at making coffee with a moka pot for the first time ever, very, very tasty coffee, turned an espresso into an Americano.

We set off for the Fife Coastal Path, which is very easily accessible from the back of the site, towards Kingsbarns, with the promise of a “Cheesy Toast Shack” toastie at Kingsbarns.

We were very much unprepared for the “difficult” walk along the coast, it’s picturesque, but it was very hot, in direct sunshine for much of it, and we didn’t carry enough water.

So, not much after Buddo Rock, we turned back…it’s a hard walk, and we’re still way too unfit for it especially in the weather we had.

The highlight was paddling in the sea to cool our feet, but otherwise, it was a tough walk back too.

I slipped on the rock steps, and injured my left ankle (the steps are very slippery), and so it wasn’t a fun experience getting back, but it is very picturesque and I would definitely love to give it another go!

We set off around 10am, and arrived back around 3pm, so we spent the afternoon relaxing around the van (the sun was very high, so we ended up skulking in the shadow of the van round back).

We debated wandering into St Andrews, but we were both pretty scorched, so it was back to the Braes for dinner, with the promise of an evening’s entertainment starting at 9pm.

I had the chicken and haggis with potatoes, and Gayle had the chicken curry, we also had a wee dessert each too, we hadn’t eaten since breakfast so we were starving, washed down with a wee bottle of rosé wine.

We were both glowing and exhausted, so we wandered back to the van around 8:30pm, and decided to take down our awning, for some reason it’s never easy to do, and after several attempts, I figured out what was wrong and wound it in, no doubt providing endless entertainment for our fellow campers.

It rained overnight, so it was worth winding the awning in.

We were up fairly late, and fancied some toast and scrambled egg at the Braes before heading off, for the first time since we bought the van, I had a shower in the van, and it wasn’t too bad, it’s a bit tight, but it worked.

Unfortunately the kitchen was out-of-order, so it was rolls ’n’ links and rolls ’n’ bacon only.

They tasted great tho’, the bacon was really crispy.

We drove back along the Fife Coastal road, through some beautiful little towns that we want to return to.

Got back just in time for the amber-warnings of rain to hit us, really started coming down here!

Overall, this felt like a real holiday, even though it was less than two days, the walk was hard, but I’d do it again, we both really enjoyed this site, and St Andrews, and we didn’t even make it into the town properly!

Definitely one we’ll return to.

Update: Gayle tested positive for COVID on the monday, which probably means that the “bad cold” I had the previous couple of weeks was also COVID, explains why we were so knackered.