Anstruther: Scottish Fisheries Museum AND Caroline's Exhibit

One Saturday, Caroline and I headed to Anstruther for an afternoon.

Caroline had an exhibit at the Scottish Fisheries Museum (Nautical Knots to Knitting Needles!) that I wanted to see.

The whole museum was really interesting, and Anstruther itself is quite pretty.

The Fisher Lass

There were model ships every where.

Creepy mannequin fishwives. 

Some of these models had incredible detail!

A bell-pull.
It has a crown, anchor, and a thistle, all made out of rope.

A funny little penquiny thing carved out of a whale tooth. 

These socks are AWESOME.

Note the super cool boat-cradle.

Inside the cottage of a fisher family.

This is Caroline :)

Walking on the pier, we saw a tower in the distance. Curious, we decided to go and investigate. 

This is the tower that piqued our curiosity.

This wall is covered with shells.
SO COOL!

It must have taken them forever to make this.

The "Dreel Tabern"
Yes, with a  B.

The Isle of May.
Famous for its puffins.

Aand... There it is!
On a golf course. It's a war memorial.

We went on those swings for a while :]

Untitled

Here are some more St. Andrews pictures from a Sunday morning. 

I love this car. One day, I will drive a car like this.

Overlooking the Cathedral grounds and graveyard. 

The out-going tide left really cool formations in the sand.
It looks like bundles of dried herbs. 

Swans.

This is St. Salvator's, one of the University chapels.

Can you see the face in the stones?

How about now?
...
Tradition has it that this is the face of Patrick Hamilton, a Protestant Reformer.
He was burnt at the stake in St. Andrews. 

His initials were set into the paving at the place of his death.
St. Andrews students have a superstition that if you step on the "PH" during a semester, you will fail your degree.
To "purify" themselves of the curse, they take part in the May Dip:
On May Day, they stay up until dawn and then all run into the North Sea.  

Dundee

Dundee, as I may have mentioned, is very different from St. Andrews. 

It has received mixed reviews. 

To some, it's a dump, while others love it. 

Personally, I quite like it.

While it is no where near as pretty as St. Andrews (generally speaking), there's an underlying current, like a pulse, or heartbeat, in Dundee. 

It is a busier place, with more color and snap.

Musicians busk on street corners. 

Protesters "occupy Dundee."

The new has blended with the old in Dundee, whereas in St. Andrews, the new seems to have been pasted over the old while still trying to preserve it. 

The Gallery. I just love the fairytale staircase. 

Cool platformy things on the roof. 

Are these "widows' walks" from which sailors' wives would watch for their husbands' ships?

There was a cloud hovering just below roof level most of the day. 

Cherry blossoms

There are still dragons in Scotland. 

I dunno, but for some reason, this seems like the sort of thing you'd see in a BC town... 

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.