East Lothian

Willie Bell

25 January 2024

Sarah, Joyce, Helen, Jo, Richard, Crawford, Neil and Willie plus the dogs Cosmo and Meg met at Dirleton on a dull morning.

Neil had the lowest carbon footprint, having arrived via the no. 124 bus from Edinburgh.

We headed north from the lovely conservation village to the coast via the John Muir Way (JMW). It was a tad wet under foot given all the storms in January, yet the farmers were ploughing the fields for winter barley. As we passed the back of the houses at Archerfield, just before Yellowcraigs carpark, Joyce announced she needed to do a bit of “turfing” – apparently it is legal 😉 and involves walking to a patch of land and claiming it via the Turfing app..

As we walked to the beach, views east to the Bass Rock and west to Fidra lighthouse were superb, albeit a bit dull.

We then headed west along the beach, which was great for the dogs to run off their excess energy. Cosmo was a bit frustrated chasing a tennis ball with Meg, but with a muzzle on so could not pick up the ball in his mouth. The effects of the storm in Oct’23 was apparent with thousands of tons of sand washed out of the sea, rocks exposed and a deluge of seaweed. This made walking a bit tricky, so we flipped back and forth from the beach to the path on the grass verge.

We had a short coffee break at the aeroplane propellor monument to the late Lord Hamilton. Neil produced some Irn Bru sweeties, which seemed appropriate as it was the 25th Jan, albeit no one did a Burns recital. The sun came out at this point and there was no wind, which is unusual and very welcome on the Forth Estuary. We kept to the beach as much as we could and eventually headed inland west towards Gullane. We had lunch in the trees adjacent to Muirfield golf course. Willie’s estimate of 3+ hours for the walk was optimistic to say the least, and a couple of walkers had not brought a packed lunch on the basis we’d be in a café by now. 🙄 We walked into Gullane and rejoined the JMW heading east which follows the North Berwick Road, then cut into the woods as we headed to Archerfield Walled Garden café. We all enjoyed excellent cakes and coffee, and Neil had a well-earned bowl of Cullen Skink plus a bottle of Irn Bru – he must own shares in A.G. Barr 🤔

The final section is a short walk on an old tarmac road back to Direlton. Joyce headed off again for another turfing claim, and Crawford had the bug and was now downloading the Turfing app. I can see future walks becoming a bit competitive.

See you in February.