May Dip

One of the traditions here at St Andrews is the May Dip. At dawn on the morning of 1 May, students gather on a beach and run out into the North Sea. They've usually stayed up the night before, bonfires on the beach, and then stripping down and running into very cold water.

Some say it's in honour of John Honey who over a hundred years ago dove into the sea to rescue five persons who would've drowned after their boat capsized out at sea. Others say that it's the only way to remove the curse placed on undergrads if they step on the cursed PH stones on North Street. Others just think that it's a really good idea.

My intention was to stay up to do it. The reality was that I had climbed a mountain the day before and I was TIRED.

So, instead of 4:30am when everyone else was doing it, my friend Kate and I decided to wait till the more sane hour of 7am to go down to East Sands and walk into the sea. Sure, it wasn't technically right, but... sleep was good.


North Sea from East Sands on May Day.


Looking out towards the town and the Fife Coastal Path.

And honestly, I think this view was better. The sun was brilliant overhead, even at 7am. It amazes me how early the sun rises here now that we're on summer time. The water sparkled like crystal, the beach was empty save for the few other people who were doing the same thing we were, and we got the experience of the North Sea in May.

Which, if you couldn't guess, is... COLD. Seriously, there needs to be a better word than cold because it was further than cold. And I've been polar bearing in the Chesapeake Bay in December. That was cold. This was COLD. I got into the water up to mid-calf before the cold burned so much that I had to get out. I don't know how some of my friends dove in head first at 4am, although I'm gathering that alcohol, lack of sleep, and peer pressure all played pretty significant roles in that decision.

Me? I think I'll appreciate the uncrowded beach and the sunshine in my own version of the tradition.

Breakaway: Schiehallion

It's amazing how quickly this year has gone by. I hadn't realized just how quickly it was going until I realized that this was going to be my last trip with Breakaway -- really? The last one already?

Usually we split into three or four groups to go on differing level walks (from low level strolls focusing more on distance to high levels helping people bag munros). For our last walk, we all do the same one and reach the top together. Well, together within 10 or so minutes of each other -- someone has to bring up the caboose and I'll be honest, that seems to be my coveted position many days! But that's okay -- slow and steady, right? I'm usually much more of a distance person than a height person, but I'll accept the challenge.

For the last walk, the tradition is to scale Schiehallion, a munro in Perth and Kinross, because while challenging, it can be done by people of varying skill and it's a straightforward walk so almost no chance of someone getting lost if they fall behind.

A munro is a mountain in Scotland over 3000ft (914.4m). There are 283 munros in Scotland and they are named after Sir Hugo Munro, who first cataloged them. It's a popular goal for hikers to 'bag' or climb all the munros in Scotland.

Schiehallion is a munro at 3547ft (1083m).




Schiehallion is located in the area of Perth and Kinross and is considered the centre of Scotland, as well as holding its own place in history:

Schiehallion's symmetrical shape earned it a place in scientific history and discovery in the late 18th century. In 1774 the Rev Neville Maskelyne, Astronomer Royal, camped out there collecting data, with the aid of a plumb line and the stars, on the gravitational pull of the mountain. 237 measurements were taken from two stations, still discernible, on the N and S of the hill. The calculated weight of the earth was substantially correct. At the end of the season a highly successful party was held in which the surveyors' bothy burned down! Charles Hutton, during his work on the survey data, devised the concept of contour lines, so important for modern hillwalkers.

--From the John Muir Trust website, maintainers of East Schiehallion

Halfway up Schiehallion, overlooking Loch Rannoch and Rannoch Moor. And about the place where I'm wondering what the hell I've gotten myself into climbing this thing.


It's like climbing a giant cairn, it's so rocky. But I'm within sight of the top... I think. Each time I thought I was, I'd crest the peak and oh look, another stretch to go. It was a tease.


But good things come to those who persevere! From the summit of Schiehallion, and my first officially bagged munro.


Coming down seemed even steeper than going up, but instead of rocks we get an entire mountainside of heather. In about a month, this entire view will be purple.


As the last official Breakaway walk of the year, we set up camp in a sheep pasture to cook out. And I know that I should be concerned while eating lamb burgers in a sheep pasture but... I'm secure in my place on the food chain. And lamb burgers are delicious.

From there it was another 5km down the road into the next town, Kinloch Rannoch, where the bus was picking us up. By that point we were all exhausted, and I was thankful that I'd been able to borrow some sun block from one of the other girls -- with that much sunshine, and as the first really sunny walk of the year, there were more than a few splashes of red on people's faces. And I've got a stripe of red on the back of my neck from where I didn't quite get the most sunblock.

It's odd to think that was my last walk with the group. I started out the year popping into the general informational meeting because it sounded interesting and hiking was never something I'd really done before (other than the one odd hill in Iceland and meandering a bit outside back home). It sounded new and a good excuse to see more of Scotland. Turns out that fresh air is really good for my soul, and while claiming my one bagged munro isn't that impressive in the grand scheme of hillwalkers, it's a big deal for this hiking newbie. And I'm going to wear it with pride.

And now I want to do another one.

Fife Coastal Path

Chris-Anne and I decided to explore a bit of the Fife Coastal Path -- which runs from the Forth Estuary in the south, to the Tay Estuary in the north and stretches for 150 kms. We explored just a tiny, tiny part of it, including the bits within view of St Andrews and down to the spindle, which is a rock formation that looks similar to a sewing spindle.

Again, as soon as we walk outside the beautiful day turns into something infinitely more gray and cold. We're pretty sure bad weather is following Chris-Anne through her vacation.


In case you were wondering... yes, it was still incredibly windy.


The beach past East Sands along the coastal path. With the tide out, the rocks are strewn with moss and the green is both surprising and amazing.


Chris-Anne indicating St Andrews in the background.


Contemplative on the beach.


I'm a fast walker, so inevitably I'm the first up to the top of the hill. The seagull approves.


I'm much less contemplative and much more 'ooh, look at the pretty' out in the wonders of nature.

Spring Forward

The clocks moved yesterday here in the UK to British Summer Time. Usually I'm dreading moving to daylight savings (as we refer to it in the US) because it means I lose an hour of sleep. However, me not having any real set schedule, especially now that we're on spring break, means that that doesn't phase me at all.

On the contrary -- having the sun not start setting until quarter to 8 in the evening is now glorious. Such a reward for getting through winter and the sunset at quarter to 4.

So with it being a glorious day, I present more pictures of the beauty that is Scotland in the spring time.








Fun time change fact: Americans remember the time change by the saying 'Spring Forward, Fall Back' (moving the clocks ahead one hour at the start of Daylight Savings Time and the moving the clocks back one hour at the end, in reference to the seasons in which these time changes happen and using the seasons as verbs to indicate movement). This phrase causes great confusion to Brits and they looked at us like we're bonkers when we tried to explain it. The confusion comes from the fact that the season is referred to as Autumn here, and not Fall. So, you can't really 'Autumn Back'...

A Walk In The Woods

It was another gorgeous day today -- really, I can see why people want to visit Scotland in the spring. If this is how it is now, I can only imagine it when May and June roll around. It's getting warmer, and it's finally sunnier. I never realized how much of an impact on mood and disposition the lack of sunlight has until I moved here. I have my room set up so that my bed faces the window to take full advantage of the burst of sunlight in the morning.

I may regret that once sunrise gets any earlier, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

After class today, and after lugging maybe 20 books from the library for my paper due this Friday, I needed some of that sunshine. The Lade Braes walk was so pretty when I last went on it that I figured I could take one of the side roads and see where they led.

So, I tried the Viaduct Walk off of the main Lade Braes trail, which was a lot shorter than I thought that it would be, leading as a cut off to The Cannongate, which is one of the roads here in St Andrews (which apparently also is the home of the St Andrews Botanical Gardens -- did not know we had botanical gardens. This must be investigated on another sunny day, as when I walked past it was already after 5pm). I figured, might as well walk down the road until I get to the point where I need to turn back and head home to beat sunset.

Ended up at Spinkie Den, which is at a cross with the Lade Braes walk, so I figured I might as well turn and just go back down the Lade Braes walk since it was such a gorgeous day.

Welcome Spring

Yesterday was the first day of spring, and it couldn't come soon enough. The days are getting longer, the sun seems to be out more and more each day (way to burst through the Scottish clouds, sun!), and the temperature seems to be creeping ever so slightly up. Today I was even a bit warm in my fleece. Tomorrow I may, gasp and astound, just wear a sweater. Love it.

And to welcome spring, there was a bonfire on the castle sands last night. A good chance to sit, chat with friends, welcome in the new season, and check out the awesome supermoon that was hanging over the horizon (because Astronomy is great, I don't care if that does make me a space geek).

It also gave everyone a chance to chuckle at me because no one realized just how much of a space geek I am. Yes, I had to point out the supermoon whenever anyone mentioned how big it seemed tonight. Of course, they also had a moment of 'how do the tides work?' since we were sitting on the beach. With me trying to bite my tongue, because they don't want the lecture -- until Rachel rolls her eyes and goes 'alright... Rebecca, how do tides work?' Again, not my fault I know thing *lol*

My epitaph will read "Rebecca... she knew things."

The pictures are dark, but then it was the middle of the night.


The moon coming up over St Andrews from the castle sands


The bonfire that brave souls were jumping over to cleanse negativity from the winter and start spring fresh


Me and Rachel chilling on the beach

Lade Braes Walk

It was a gorgeous day today. And when I say gorgeous, I don't even mean 'gorgeous for Scotland'. No, no qualifier. Just gorgeous. And while I needed to get some reading done on Locke, it would've been a shame to spend the entire day inside. Instead I decided to enjoy a walk. And while out and about town, I saw one of the signs down one of the alleys that I walk past almost every day and don't usually give it a second thought.



Now, I'd heard of the Lade Braes walk, and that it was a pretty walk. But that was all that I knew. Well, it was a pretty day, and I was looking for a pretty walk, so that sounded like a good deal to me.

Whoever said that it was 'pretty' was using a serious understatement. First, for those who don't know the area, a little history lesson from the historical markers on the trail.

Years ago, a mill lade (stream) ran through St Andrews to the Priory. Built by monks, it provided water for households and power for watermills. The Walk follows the line of the lade which was piped and covered in stages between 1868 and 1893.

Today, it's a fine, varied walk along the braes (hillsides) of the lade from St Andrews to the open country of Craightoun Park. The two-mile route follows the Kinness Burn which fed the lade, but you can turn back into town at several points on the route and visit the Doocot or the Botanic Garden.

Tada, the Lade Braes walk. If you end up in St Andrews, it's a delightful stroll, and a surprisingly beautiful piece of forest and land that I wasn't expecting.


Ladebraes Lane, going behind South Street, before you cross Bridge Street into the walk proper. The wall to the right in addition to being the boundaries of the houses on the lane used to be part of the ancient defenses of St Andrews.


You walk and all of a sudden it opens up into the gloriously green park, complete with play area and football pitch. I had no idea this was out here.


Majority of the walk follows by this fantastic stream and the first buds of spring. There are already huge patches of daffodils just waiting to blossom. I'll be out in another week or so just to see the explosion of yellow sure to come.


More pretty path as you make it to one of the old watermills at the end of the walk.


Speak of the devil -- look, an old watermill! From the path it looks like it's open, or at least not fenced in. I'll have to explore that next time.


Proof of why it was a good day to be out -- you don't get that many gloriously blue skies in Scotland. Although I am getting spoiled hoping for Spring now...

Let It Snow

Apparently we're in the middle of the worst snow here in the UK since 1993. Which I think was a pretty bad year in the States too, so... sweet. It is one of the benefits of being able to walk everywhere -- snow can't stop me.

But we'd planned a Breakaway trip up to Trossachs today, and we made it as far as 15 minutes down the road when the alert came over the bus radio. Perth was closed. Not just a road around Perth, oh no. The entirety of Perth was closed, which meant no way (correction, no clear and open way) up into the Highlands. Nothing. Scotland, for all intents and purposes, was pretty much shut down.

So, in an attempt to salvage our trip, we turned and made our way to the one place in Fife that we knew would be close enough to get to through the snow -- Falkland and Lomond Hills. Which was where we went a couple months ago, so of course one place that I'd already been, but it was better than nothing.

And covered in snow, the Falkland Estate has a very holiday card/Narnia aspect to it. It was cold, very cold, and giant snow turning into sleet for the day, but it was fantastic to get outside and trudge around in the snow. Now, all I needed was a sled and I would've been set.



Scottish roses, why are you still blooming through the snow?



Narnia, plain and simple.

I didn't get the build a snowman, but maybe tomorrow. The BBC says that we should expect a bit more snow, even here on the coast, so we'll see. As much as it makes a mess, I'm hoping that we do. I was out of town so I didn't get to see St Andrews covered in snow, so I'd like to see that.

And just for good measure, a picture that was supposed to be a pretty smiling picture, but a huge snowball dropped from the trees and bonked me in the head just before my friend clicked the picture. So, instead of me happy and pretty, you get side-eye and glaring at the snow. Not what I was intending, but it entertains me too much to delete. Enjoy.

St Andrews Festival

The big thing this weekend has been the St Andrews Festival -- three day, town-wide festival celebrating the upcoming St Andrews Day. Food, celebration, fireworks... fantastic.




Which, my favorite had to be the torchlight procession down to the harbor to watch fireworks. Imagine hundreds of people lighting torches to march down the town streets, and a pipe band leading the way to the harbor. And in no small part slightly huddled together and close to the fires to keep warm (today was centering around -2C).




But the pay off for the freezing cold walk? This gorgeous scene.



And what good is a Scottish festival without the Saltire on fun things like balloons?

Night is a world lit by itself. -- Antonio Porchia

We have seven weeks off between semesters because my program doesn't have exams. I'm very happy to be spending it somewhere other than here for the following reason...

The pictures below? Taken at 4:45pm. People aren't even off of work yet, stores aren't closed, and yet it's completely and utterly night. The sun starts setting at 3:30pm and is gone long before these pictures are taken. If this is November, I can only assume what December is like.

Breakaway: Gairloch (Day 3)

Monday was our last day in Gairloch, and as much as I love St Andrews, I really did not want to leave. Coming home means having to deal with home things again (even if it's still Reading Week -- at least being out of town meant that I had the excuse not to do work).

So with everything packed into the cars, we set out for our last walk. We had the option of low-medium, low, or extremely low. Which elicited a chuckle from the group at breakfast, but a fair number of takers because we were all exhausted.

For those of us in the low group, we went back to Loch Maree to walk around the perimeter and just enjoy a nice, simple forest walk. The most we did was climb up a rocky hill to overlook the loch and one of the islands containing trees from the ancient Caldonian pine forests that used to cover Scotland.



Loch Maree and her pretty little waves.


From our lunch-ish perch overlooking the loch and the forests.


Parting shot of Loch Maree and Beinn Eighe and all of the wonderful places we'd been that weekend.


Which meant it was time to pile into the cars and head home, passing through more snow than is appropriate as we approached Pitlochry and stopping at a brewery with free tours -- and we picked the time they weren't actually running the tours. I voted to head to the distillery just up the road outside of Inverness because I like whiskey more than beer, but was outvoted by tired people. Silly tired people.

Now I'm ready to go back out. All I need to do is scrub the boots and the gaiters, and we're back in business.

Breakaway: Gairloch (Day 2)

Sunday in Gairloch was cold. Ridiculously cold. And windy. Did I mention cold and windy? I thought that I was going to be prepared for the wind in Scotland because I grew up on the water and we had wind and cold during the winter and that was quite normal. But there was nothing that prepared me for the way that this wind and cold cuts right through whatever you have on unless it is windproof. And even then, it's wily so it can find a way under the windproof garments.

I got talked into doing another low-medium walk even though my legs were still burning from the previous day with the promise that the one today would be more indicative of a traditional low-medium walk. Fine, it's cool. The burn will feel good.

I don't remember the actual name of where we went (which means I should probably pull out a map and figure it out -- all I remember is pulling off to the side of the road and going through a sheep gate, but that doesn't exactly narrow down the choices in Scotland, does it?) but it was a lovely long rocky path with small lochs and a valley... and a lot of mud. It had snowed a bit the night before and so now the ground was alternately solid and muddy. Lovely.



The forest path before we got up to the rocky hills.


Ah, here we go.


Make sure to add a stone to the cairn as you pass.


Again with the desperate and lonely beauty of the area.


At this point the path headed down to the valley and we were given a choice. We could all go down to the valley, or a few of us could break off and go cross country to circle back to the path. Considering that the valley walk was an extra 7km, and we'd been shaking with cold as we ate lunch, and the fact that I'm pretty sure my legs could get me down into the valley, but up was another deal all together...





I opted for cross country! Which was a bit more interesting than just staying on the path. It was more solitude with the five of us who broke off and a feeling of being out in the middle of the landscape alone.

It's an interesting feeling -- that feeling of being alone in a big, wide expanse. I'm sure that some people would find it incredibly uncomfortable, but I think it's liberating. Fresh air, a chance to clear the mind, and a chance to completely ignore any problems back home for a few glorious hours (or in this case for a few days). No iPod, no constant conversation... a rare opportunity to spend a little time alone with your thoughts as you walk.

It's... uncluttered, I guess is the best way to describe it. And there are far too few times when I feel uncluttered.

Breakaway: Gairloch (Day 1)

So, over the weekend I headed up with Breakaway to the highlands, staying in Gairloch. Totally a last minute thing, as I was the person going 'please, please if you have an extra spot I'll totally keep it warm'. Cheers for one extra seatbelt. Friday through Monday hiking and generally enjoying the outdoors. As it's Reading Week this week, I needed to get out of town and this was just what I needed.

We stayed at Carn Dearg in Gairloch and it was absolutely gorgeous. The views from the front porch of the hostel were out of this world. And on a clear day, like we were lucky enough to have for the majority of our visit, you can see the Isle of Skye across the loch.


Sunrise from the front of the hostel.

The group tends to split and offer 3-4 walks of varying difficulty and length so that everyone can enjoy a day outside at their skill level. Me? I'm a low-medium. A good walk, a bit of height for the views.

So Saturday, those in my group headed out to Beinn Eighe and Loch Maree at the National Nature Reserve to do our walk. Gorgeous, stunning... and way more high steps and vertical movement than I thought I was signing up for. By the end of the walk I am exhausted and sore... and still thrilled for the view.



On our way up, overlooking more of Beinn Eighe and Loch Maree.


The desperately beautiful landscape as we get further up the range as it evens out for a bit.


The peaks got snow overnight, and the part of our group that wanted to make it up the munro got to play in the snow. I was fine just taking a picture.


Victorious as we get to our cairn at 550m (which is in another picture, but I like standing on the rock better) and decide that it's time for lunch before beginning our descent. Which, like the ascent, was steeper than I was anticipating.


And with it being steeper both up and down my legs are exhausted by the time we make it back down to Loch Maree. But, since we finished a bit earlier than anticipated, we decided to go check out part of the beach at Loch Gairloch that the low walking group did that day.



Sunset as we walk down to the beach. This has to be one of my favorite pictures I took all weekend.


The beach and the waves and the sunset -- couldn't get better.


Oh wait, climbing up to the cliffs to overlook the crashing waves does make it even better.


Stunning -- and the best part was that there were two more days of it!

And with it getting dark at 5pm, we head back to the hostel for dinner, which consisted of a really good curry that had actual spice to it. Shocker! Most of the food I've had in the UK has been pretty spice-less. Of course, the curry was also made by our Luxembourgish club president, so perhaps that made a difference? Regardless, delicious.