Midweek hike to Balwearie Castle in the Kingdom of Fife 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Scotland

Hello Hello Hivians

This morning Mrs T and I set off on a hike.

Although it did not start out that way, it was just a walk on the pavement!

We walked down the road by the park it was on our right side... and then it happened!

Yes can you believe it, the wildlife appeared!

Okay so it was a standing stag, actually their next door neighbours had some absolute stoaters of flowers!

Look at this one, gorgeous no?

It turns out that it is an Inula magnifica or the giant fleabane and it is a species of flowering plant in the sunflower family Asteraceae at least that is what I found out with my wiki research.

Makes sense as it did remind me of a sunflower, the magnifica handle is pretty spot on as I think it is magnificent.

Speaking of magnificent, just look how beautiful and magnificent our local Beveridge Park is looking in the summer sun!

We were not going there today, no sireee we were carrying on straight down the road, towards the golf course actually...

One thing that Mrs T loves about the UK is that in towns, we use our green spaces so well, also the fact that we actually have green spaces.

Okay so now we are going off road! We zip past the golf course, and then it's ...

Decision Time

Normally we take the right trail and either go to the waterfalls, the park or Raith Lake.

Would today be the day to be different?

Can you see the white sign that says Auchertool Walk?

experience - engage - enjoy

What great words are on the bottom of the sign, and it is how I like to participate in life and now also in Hive!

How about you? Do you like to experience - engage - enjoy?

There underneath the Walk in Auchertool Walk is a castle symbol and Balwearie Castile beside it.

That would be our wee walk today and judging from the sign we should be looking for something like this 👇...

So with the engrained on our minds, off we set in the glorious sunshine!

According to the wee map,that means turning the corner.

Over the stream and up the hill...

Hill or was it hills...

How about those clouds @deraaa , are they fluffy enough?

I do love me some pretty flowers. In the background is a field we often walk past which has horses, I can't see any at the moment!

Up Up Up We Go!

Standing taking pictures of trees and hills was all well and dandy but it was not getting us any closer to our destination of Balwearie Castle.

You don't need to walk far to see the change in scenery. I love how all the stone dykes mostly survive. Do you know in Scotland we call a stone wall like that a dyke, but in England a dyke is the ditch.

Do you know the crop that is in the field?

Well it is not ripe yet, but it is wheat.

When it is all ripe and ready to harvest, it will be quite the colourful sight.

Gives us an excuse to go back at harvest time!

Decision time Round 2!

We had been walking when we had a choice to make. The path we were coming up vertically joined one that was running horizontally.

So should we turn right?

I looked at our photo of the sign and the red trail to Balwearie seemed to keep left and hugged the golf course.

Well we had not seen the gold course since we started walking, now we had doubts about the accuracy of said sign!

This was the trail to the left ...

As we allegedly should have been hugging the golf course to the left I decided we should take the left road.

Was this the gateway to Balwearie Castle?

I was getting some good vibes!

There was no turning back for us now!

I really felt we were on track as there seemed to midges all around us, the wee buggers!

We have had quite a lot of rain recently which I reckoned had made for perfect breeding conditions for the Scottish mosquito aka the dreeded midgie!

But then I saw it ....

We were back at the golf course, so maybe the sign was right after all.

But look at the bloody big water patch on the golf hole! That is the breeding ground for the bloody midgies.

The hole was on the right side of the track.

Meanwhile do an about turn!

To the left of the track we were standing on was more golf holes.

It seems the sign was spot on after all.

The castle must be just up ahead!

Okay let's go! Said I rather enthusiastically....

I had seen some stone ruins through the trees...

OH FLUFF

That was not Balwearie Castle! I have no idea what it is, some old church by the looks of it!

This concludes Midweek hike to Balwearie Castle in the Kingdom of Fife 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Scotland and is my post for this week's #wednesdaywalk challenge hosted by @tattoodjay in collaboration with #makemesmile hosted by @elizacheng.

Come back for the next episode as we continue on wth our quest to find Balwearie Castle...

Thanks for visiting and enjoy the rest of your day!