Walk #1 West Wemyss to Buckhaven

Fife holiday 2026 #3

Our coastal walk continued. You could generally see the next village on the trail in the distance but often it took a long time to actually arrive there - distances can be deceptive! This compact little village is West Wemyss (pronounced Weemz), which means 'cave' - and there were caves in the steep sandstone cliffs. Some were reputed to have Pictish cave paintings but they were so dark inside that you couldn't really see anything. The soft stone of the cliffs was nicely weathered and I could have made lots of photos here.

This area was obviously a gathering place for the local community and had some interesting mosaics. The coat of arms of Clan Weymss features swans, so the mosaic is a nod to that. The Chief of the Clan still lives in Wemyss Castle, I believe, which is somewhere on top of the cliffs. 

It looked an attractive village though we didn't explore beyond the coastal footpath. 

One of my friends is much more expert at identifying flowers than I am and she was keeping a log. We were both excited by the lupins growing wild everywhere, something you don't see in our own local area. Out to sea, we spotted islands off the North Berwick coast. I believe the one on the left is the famous Bass Rock seabird colony (whose guano makes it look quite white). The larger, darker lump on the right is, I think, on the mainland and is the volcanic plug called North Berwick Law. 

It was in this area that we spotted lots of seals basking on the rocks - at least fifteen in my photo! We were not expert enough to know whether they are Grey seals or Harbour seals but we enjoyed watching them. (Not that they were doing a lot!) 

More lupins, and lots of buttercups, as we approached East Wemyss.  Then the track climbed a bit as we passed the red sandstone ruin of Macduff Castle, associated with the Macduff Earls of Fife, the most powerful family in Fife in the Middle Ages.

For a while the path moved away from the immediate coastal strip, through lush green farmland and lanes filled with wild flowers. The Fife peninsula is a rich agricultural area. Our breakfast packet of Scotts Porridge Oats proudly proclaimed them to be grown entirely in Fife. Now I can't be exactly sure what growing oats look like, but I think the field below might be them. 

By this point we'd walked more than eight miles. The last two miles from Buckhaven to Leven, where we'd left the cars, were largely pavement walking, so a few of us stopped at Buckhaven and caught a bus back to Leven, and had a welcome cup of coffee! It had been a very good day - no rain, no blisters and I didn't ache too much. In fact most of us even managed an evening walk around Crail later, after dinner.