26/09/24
After a morning finishing off some work tasks at Kingsbarns, it was time to move onto our next stop. We left Kingsbarns covered in salt spray from a very blustery night where the wind seemed to be directly on to our rear end.
Laundry time
Our main objective was to do some laundry, so we checked into the community run Larick Campsite at Tayport where the washing machines seemed like a very reasonable price at £3. What we didnt realise was that we were paying for a short wash, which might be fine to refresh everyday clothes, but wasn’t going to be man enough for our smelly sportswear which had been festering in the laundry bag for a while. The answer was a trug and a good soak in advance of being loaded into the washing machine for a rinse and a spin. The campsite had a lovely warm drying room which made up for the extra manual effort for the washing. We didn’t need to use the tumble drier, just leave our clothes hung up overnight.
Tentsmuir National Nature Reserve
When we checked into the campsite, the friendly warden pointed us in the direction of a couple of easy walks to make the most of the Tentsmuir national nature reserve that makes up this north eastern corner of Fife. She even mentioned that an osprey had been sighted by the lochs. We were quite excited to get out for some wildlife spotting.
Once installed on our pitch (no electric in order to save £5 for the night) we set out across the local golf course towards Morton Lochs. Once through the the golf course we followed the edge of the pine forest to the lochs and spent a pleasant hour in the bird hides watching the lakes. These were lovely and peaceful. We saw several kingfishers (or maybe the same kingfisher multiple times) as well as ducks and coots. The lochs are well known for their dragonflies and we saw several hovering amongst the reeds. We caught glimpses of red squirrels and think we spotted the sleek back of an otter in the water at the edge of the loch. Was it wishful thinking? We didn’t manage to capture anything on camera, as usual our patience isn’t sufficiently well developed to sit in wait for the perfect shot.

Morton Lochs – a great place to watch the wildlife
That evening we took the bikes out for a spin around the forest. We were prepared for the sun setting before we returned, so took our lights with us. We didn’t realise quite how dark it would get, and how spooky it would feel returning through the trees with the rabbits rustling in the hedgerows and owls hooting around us. Some of the bats flitting between the trees came close enough that we could feel the passing of their wings.

Night biking in the forest
Before the sun set on us we cycled out as far as we could towards the sandy spit where seals were singing mournful tunes. We could see them in the distance on the sandbanks out in the Firth of Tay. Our time watching the seals was cut short when some very curious bullocks came to investigate us. I definitely wanted to get to the other side of a fence. I don’t mind admitting I’m not the biggest fan of the young ‘wild things’ of the cow world.
- Beach and sea defences at Tayport
- Endless sandbanks of Tentsmuir Point
- Forest tracks
- Curious beasts