East Wemyss to Lower Largo

This section of the Fife Coastal Path begins in East Wemyss, at the entrance to the Wemyss Caves. Drive along the main road into East Wemyss and turn down School Lane. This will take you down to the shore where there are lots of parking spaces to leave your car and begin the walk. Heading left along the path you will see the information boards describing the Wemyss Caves and the path begins just behind these. This section is around 7 miles long and should take 3 to 3 1/2 hours.
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​The path here was once wide enough to drive cars along in front of the caves, and people regularly did, to have picnics and even parties, but it’s now only just wide enough to walk along in single file due to coastal erosion. The path takes you past the entrances to the first two caves, the Court Cave and the Doo Cave. If you want to explore inside these caves to see the fantastic Viking and Pict drawings contact the charity who look after the caves here and they can arrange a tour, they do not recommend visiting them without a guide as they are unsafe.
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​After these caves the path turns left up hill steeply to the MacDuff Castle. The first known Castle built here was built by the MacDuff Earls of Fife in the 11th Century during the reign of King MacBeth, the castle here now was built by the Wemyss family in the 14th Century. Although the castle is now a ruin it is stunningly beautiful, the dramatic backdrop of the cliffs, beach and sea means you can take some fantastic photos from here.
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​I can definitely recommend climbing back down the steps to see the rest of the caves from here, but if not the path carries on past the left hand side of the Castle along the edge of MacDuff Cemetary before turning left towards the main road. Before going onto the main road though turn right and take the path heading back down towards the Coast. The views from here are fantastic and you can see the biggest wind turbine in Fife, standing 196 metres above the sea and powering 4800 homes.
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​After a nice gentle walk above the sea the path climbs up until you reach a fork in the road. Keep left until you reach an iron gate. Turn right and walk along the edge of Buckhaven to join Randolph Street through the centre of Buckhaven. Buckhaven and Leven are built up towns and this was not my favourite section of the path but it’s a good time to visit a café or pub for a bite to eat and there are shops for water and places to sit for a rest. The Promanade in Leven is nice, with ice cream vans and arcades it’s good for the kids, with parks and an outdoor gym.
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​The path carries on along the Promanade until you reach the Caravan Park, look out for some nice views of the Bass Rock here. Here we have choice – if the tide is in you might need to walk to the left along the inside edge of the caravan park but usually it will be fine to head down to the right along the beautiful sandy beach until you reach a burn. Look out for the Coastal Path signs here and follow the burn across a small bridge and continue following it through the golf course – Mind your head! The path then heads towards the main road on the edge of Lundin Links. Take the next right and head down to the Lundin Links Golf Course and pass the club house. This 18 hole golf course is used as a qualifying course when the Open is held in St Andrews. Established in 1886, and redesigned by James Braid this course has some of the finest examples of link holes anywhere in Scotland. Also before turning into the golf course if you look across the road you will see the Ladies course and at the second hole you can find three huge Standing stones, the tallest being over 17 feet tall!
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From the Mens Club House go through the car park and take the path down to the shore. This path is quite steep in parts and is sandy so watch your feet. You will then join a path, then a road. Cross the bridge into Lower largo and head to the Temple car park to finish this section.
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This was a bit of a mixed bag, this section. The caves and Macduff Castle were really nice to see, as were the standing stones, and there were some fantastic views in several places, this section though had some steep climbs and some modern industrial towns. Coming up next is the section from Lower Largo to Pittenweem.
You can read about my tour of the Wemyss Caves and MacDuff Castle herethe-wemyss-caves-fife.html
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