The Secret Garden by the Sea

SURPRISE!

Ha, I'll bet you weren't expecting a new post so soon, hmmm?

Well, I wanted to share my pictures of the beautiful Cambo Estate with you all.

I hope you don't mind.

It was another GLORIOUSLY sunny day this Saturday 

(St. Patrick's day - Happy Belated St. Patrick's Day!).

A friend and I had been planning to go to the Cambo Estate for ages. Ever since the beginning of the snowdrop season, actually. The Estate is famous for their carpets of snowdrops.

However, other than a few late bloomers valiantly clinging to the tail of the season, we didn't see any. 

To get there, we took the bus from St. Andrews to the little town of Kingsbarns. 

A double decker bus. 

(Yes, Lexi, I have finally ridden in the top of a double decker bus. It wasn't red though.)

Once in Kingsbarns, we walked along the coast of the North Sea on the Fife Coastal Path. 

Most of the time we were parallel to a golf course. 

I can understand why people might want to play golf IF they could play on a course like this all the time. 

Anyways, pictures:

The church in Kingsbarns.

This is called a "kissing gate." 

The water was SO BLUE, we wanted to jump in.

On the Fife Coastal Path.

Officially on Cambo property.

Some of the only snowdrops we saw.

 We ate lunch in the little cafe area and then browsed the gift shop. Nearly everything was snowdrop-themed, including my tea mug. 

Or pig-themed.

We went and fed potatoes to the pigs. 

Piglets are cute :3

I wanted to take them home.

Unfortunately, they turn out like this... :p

The house looks like it belongs in a Jane Austen film.
One day, I will live in a house like this...

So we may have been too late for snowdrops and too early for anything else to have grown in the gardens, but it was still lovely. There is something about walled gardens that is almost magical, perhaps because they seem so separate from the rest of the world. 

With their walls and hedges and "secret" atmosphere, the Cambo gardens reminded me of The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. 

This makes me think of Japan.

Can you not imagine Mary Lennox disappearing through there?

After we left the Estate, we climbed over a fence and traipsed through a field.

Eventually we made it back to the golf course. 

Finding the Fife Path again was a little more difficult, as it seems to weave in and around the course. 

We were never sure if we were on the golf course or on the path.

Almost worth learning to play golf...
But then, I could just go for a walk without lugging a bag of sticks around. 

It was one of those beautiful days that needed to be exclaimed over at regular intervals; the kind of day that made you happy.