24th
April 2016 (Sunday)
.... 08.30
Hmmmm ....
it’s a nice morning; a good morning for
running the London Marathon, which I’m not, so I’ve
got the bike out and intend biking up to the ‘Auld Fella’.... the big beech
tree up at Kilbrackmont.... this will be my ‘marathon’ for today. I have biked it non- stop from Ivy, but I
don’t
 |
| Kilbrackmont beech |
intend doing that .... in fact I’m going to walk up the steeper bits of
Balcarres.....up until now I have always biked the Double Dykes but, ‘discretion
is the better part of valour’, so from now on I walk the steeper bits. The flask is filled with coffee, I’ve
packed some fruit, and a couple of ‘goodies’ for my usual picnic up at ‘the
tree’..... all I have to do is make sure the i-phone is fully charged (I’m
switching the tracker ‘on’) and I am
more or less ready to ‘roll’.... oh... and make sure I have plenty batteries
for the camera.
21.30 It was hard work, biking into a wind even
a light wind, is hard.... and, with most of the Balcarres Estate, right up to
the ‘auld tree’ at Kilbrackmont, being 90% uphill it was doubly hard at
times..... but I made up to the ‘Auld Fella’, and ‘he’ is still ‘staunin’. This tree is not the bonniest beech tree, in
fact I didn’t think it was a
 |
| Stewart working ... Elie Estate |
beech tree at all when I first found it six years
ago; it was only when I checked the
buds, that I realised it was a beech tree.
The bark is so old it looks like wizened leather.... very un-beech tree
like! It doesn’t have a normal beech
tree trunk ... in fact it doesn’t have a trunk of any length at all... only a
few feet then huge limbs grow out in all directions. Many of the trees in this woodland have been
‘coppiced’ at some time, and it looks like the ‘Auld Fella’ might well have
been coppiced, albeit by a lightning strike at one time. How long he will continue to produce leaves
and nuts in the future I don’t know, but he has certainly been doing so for a
good two hundred years by the look of ‘him’;
and he has fresh buds appearing this year! It was beautiful up there, warm in the sun
as I was out of the cool wind.... just the perfect place to have my ‘coffee and
energy giving goodies’!
I
wasn’t sure how I would go back down: “Should
I retrace my tracks to the Main
 |
| Sara Van Veen |
road then hit real speed on the way down to
Robin Gray’s cottage... or should I go down the old ‘Coal Road’ to Gibliston
Farm (the ‘Coal road continued onward to St Monans) then along to Balmakin, cross
the Main road onto Balcarres then down the Double dykes to Colinsburgh?” I chose the latter, which I knew was going
to be rough; I was up there and the Old
Coal road was there .... yep it had to be it!
The
Coal Road was rough but not as bad as it was two years ago .... the only thing
of ‘note’ was the number of Small Tortoiseshell butterflies on the wing; and that particular ‘ note’ continued all
the way down, from Kilbrackmont to
Ivy! It was warm in the sun
and the butterflies were out enjoying it!
So was I .... and I have a touch of the sun ... or it could be windburn,
to prove it!
T
 |
| Elie harbour |
he
whole journey, of 20.98 kilometres (13.4 miles) took three hours and five
minutes, but I spent a bit of time at the bottom of Balcarres Crag photographing
the Magnolias which are in bloom just now.
I walked about 400 metres, on the steeper bits, and creeping around the
magnolias.... the rest of the time I was on the bike, stopping to take
photographs as I wished. Not long after
I got back to Ivy Jimmy came along for a cuppa and we ended up going down to
the Sailing Club for the afternoon.
Elie Harbour was busy with folks out enjoying the balmy afternoon, at
the ‘Centre of the Universe’.... a perfect Sunday!
I
have had a brilliant, if tiring day, and I suspect there won’t be much of my
book read in bed tonight! The weather
forecast for the next few days is ‘colder and windier’ so today was the perfect
day for my ... ‘half marathon’ on the bike.
Photographs
: Top – Stewart, hard at work, replanting woodland on Elie Estate, Next – The old
beech tree up at Kilbrackmont, Next – “Sarah Van Veen” and, Bottom – Elie Harbour.
