We left for home the next morn­ing after a heavy meal at the bed and break­fast, where every­thing was deep fried, includ­ing my toast. Our route was cir­cuitous, planned care­ful­ly by Dennis so I could see as much of the coun­try as pos­si­ble.

The thing that strikes me most about the Scottish land­scape is that you don’t need to be on top of a moun­tain to get a good view. There’s breath­tak­ing beau­ty all around, nev­er obscured by sky­scrap­ers or tree­lines. The air is also some of the most pure and fresh you’ll ever get to breathe, yet neu­tral; it does­n’t smell par­tic­u­lar­ly like flow­ers or foliage, it just smells clean.

 

I love these old-school red tele­phone box­es.

 

Ham and cheese toastie, stan­dard pub fare.

Loch Morlich. Canada may have plen­ty of beach­es, but they’re not usu­al­ly backed by snow-tipped moun­tains.

The Old Course St Andrews

The offi­cial name is “The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews”, and as the birth­place and gov­ern­ing body of golf and prob­a­bly most famous course in the world, this is quite an apt title. All major pro­fes­sion­al play­ers have played these links at some point in their career.

Dennis him­self has played there three times¹, and he told me the sto­ry of how nerve-wrack­ing it was to have his name announced at the club­house, then all the tourists around him hush­ing each oth­er to be qui­et as they watched him tee-off. It’s also an extreme­ly dif­fi­cult course, as links tend to be close to coasts, and hence very windy.

The town of St Andrews is filled with golf stores, and it seems like none of the towns­peo­ple are in a rush to get any­where. It’s easy to see how a sport like golf start­ed here.

The first hole, with the 18th hole in the back­ground. I’d be plen­ty ner­vous about slic­ing the ball into the parked cars and hous­es.

 

The club­house.

Wind speed meter.

 

1. It’s a pub­lic course so any­one can play, but your name has to be drawn from a lot and you’re giv­en less than 24 hours notice of your tee-off time. [↩]