Day 6: Pillars of Hercules organic farm campsite to Inverkeithing

OK, so the plan today was for a shorter day and an early finish, a catch up with an old uni friend in Dalgety Bay, a bit of time at the hotel in Inverkeithing and an early night. Only one of those things actually happened. 

We left the oasis of the Pillars of Hercules reluctantly after one more trip to the shop and around the cottage garden. Somehow I was persuaded to buy two books in the shop, against my better judgement, and added them to the load in the trailer. One (the book on British wildflowers) proved very useful later on when we were having a debate on whether the huge hogweeds lining the path around Loch Leven were actually giant hogweed (they weren't). And we found out from the book that the mature stems, being hollow, make very good pea shooters. Hence, Olly ended up carrying a few pea shooters the rest of the way! And on that note, how did I end up with yet another stick in the trailer to carry home? Every outing seems to add more sticks to the collection outside our front door, but I'm not entirely sure how I was persuaded a couple of days ago to carry one all the way to Edinburgh in the trailer and then back home. 

Anyway,  it was a cloudy start to the day.  I guess the haar was rolling in from the east and rising up over the Lomond hills. Which meant we didn't get much of a view of them as we cycled along the quiet NCN1 back road. But the bonus was that the baking didn't start until later. 

(Cloud just lifted)

Agricultural land stretched through Fife as far as the eye could see. I was imagining all the open, tilled, monoculture fields as a rich permaculture of biodiverse edibles on different layers, with plants especially chosen to work together. Wouldn't it be good if farming practices started moving towards this and it became the norm?

On that note,  I finally started reading my holiday book this morning - The Hidden Life of Trees - and learned some interesting facts about how trees work together. Did you know that if one tree in an area senses it's leaves being eaten by an animal, it sends chemical signals to other trees in the area that allows them to produce a chemical that puts the animal off eating from them? 

We continued to Loch Leven.

Passing a playpark just before the loch, the children tried to invoke their UN human rights 'right to play', but were overruled by the mums, to much protest. When this happened again much later in the day (when we were late for dinner) the mums were regaled with a hilarious chant of "meany, meany" as we cycled along trying to follow the NCN1 out of Dunfermline. 

NCN cycle route 1 follows the northwest side of Loch Leven, where Mary, Queen of Scots was imprisoned in Loch Leven Castle, on one of the islands, from 1567 to 1568. It follows a lovely shared use track around the Loch, through diverse wildflower meadows, marshes and woodland. 

We stopped for lunch by it's shores, but sadly couldn't swim due to blue-green algae. I'm a bit confused about blue-green algae. They produced a world we could live in (through oxygen production) and yet they're so toxic to us. 

Clearly we haven't let the children have enough time to read the books they brought on the journey...

I think it was an enlightening sight for passers by. And very peaceful for the mums!

Towards Kinross, still by the shores of Loch Leven, the 'right to play' was invoked again (successfully) and we had another brief stop as the sun started to emerge from the clouds to bake us. 

We left Loch Leven behind and started to climb away from the agricultural plains. This culminated in a sweaty uphill slog in the blistering heat at Hillend, with more entertainment from the 'rivers of pee' on the way. But, the more uphill, the better the downhill! And, as we crested the hill, we were greeted by the sight of the haary Firth of Forth, with the new road bridge emerging from the mist. It's strange to me that I find the bridge so majestic when I'm so concerned about our impact on our natural environment, but it is an impressive feat of engineering. 

You can just see its white peaks in the distance there. 

We descended into Dunfermline and managed to get separated into two groups as an NCN1 sign made a surprise right turn. One passed under the other on the old railway line, but the wonders of modern technology allowed us to relocate each other outside the Co-op which fortuitously turned into the ice-cream stop of the day. 

We were now much later than the planned arrival of 5pm at the hotel in Inverkeithing,  and had to keep revising our dinner arrival time with Niall Butchart (of Aberdeen uni Lairig club days) in Dalgety Bay. He came out to meet us by bike (we managed to miss each other but eventually met up beside the train station, and he had a good ride up the hill!) and escorted us back to his, Marianne and Erin's house where dinner was just ready and there was a great spread of food laid out for us. It was very welcome, and we're incredibly grateful to them for their kindness in looking after us. 

Niall then escorted us to our hotel! Thank you so much!

And it wasn't quite as bad as I expected leaving the comforts of the tent behind. 

Our route, somehow 58km, although we promised 50!:

Kristina