over the generations. It can get pretty
complicated!” he adds with a chuckle.
On the beach, a gaggle of female
students with trilling home counties
accents enact bizarre rituals for their
friends on camera. One holds a
cocktail aloft while standing up to
her waist in the freezing ocean. I keep
walking and pass a pair of American
students enacting a drunken (yet
impressively word-perfect) rendition
of Romeo and Juliet from street to
balcony. Then, as suddenly as it
arrived, the windswept silence
of the coast path returns.
At Anstruther, I photograph a soulful
man staring out to Bass Rock, his
guitar laying next to him on the grass.
The scene looks like an album cover.
George tells me he comes here from
Falkirk, to serenade the spot where his
wife’s ashes are scattered. I show him
the photo I’ve taken: “Ay, you got my
bald spot nicely – very artistic!”
As I get closer to Edinburgh, people
get slimmer, and the houses get
grander. At Burnt Island, the Norse
influence is now a form of hygge
rather than pillaging.
I’m walking through a less salubrious
part of Fife when I get been bitten
on the arse, comic-book style, by a
German Shepherd. Fortunately, I’m
wearing three layers for the cold, so
there’s no puncture wound, but it
becomes painful as the adrenaline
subsides. “Sorry pal,” says its owner.
A few days later, an Edinbugger tells
me with a twinkle in his eye: “Ay, it
takes a lang spoon tae sup with a Fifer.”
I make a big push to reach the Forth
Bridges before darkness. The effort
pays off, and I cross the Forth Road
Bridge as the sun is setting. For four
years and 362 days of walking, I’ve
dreamt of walking across here, with
the iconic rail bridge at my side, and
tonight I did. Tomorrow I’ll arrive
in Scotland’s capital.fter waking from a deep sleep
amongst dunes near St
Andrews, the first sign of life
as I approach the town is a
young man being stripped by a gang
of friends on the famous golf course.
His buttcheeks glow white against
the putting green on which he stands.
I turn the corner to see a woman with
her arms bound, being led on a leash
by a group dressed in angel wings and
fluffy halos. Bemused and amused,
I ask a passing student what’s going
on: “Oh, it’s Raisin Weekend. It’s a
small town here; we have to make our
own fun. Sometimes pranks get repaidA rowdy tradition disturbs Quintin Lake’s
photo walk as he heads towards Edinburgh
Perimeter
A
Perimeter
Quintin Lake
Roving photographer
Quintin is two thirds through his
6,000-mile photo walk around
the whole of the UK coast.
http://www.theperimeter.ukThe iconic Forth Bridge heralded
both the approach to Edinburgh
and the end of Scotland for
my journey. It’s also an overly
popular photographic subject,
so I camped near the bridge
on the Queensferry side and
photographed it at both dawn
and dusk to help work through
the cliché. In the end, I felt this
crop into the underside of the
structure best expressed the
scale, and showed a more
original viewpoint.This month’s route
Dundee to Aberdeen
7 days, 110 miles, 5,532 miles100 DIGITAL CAMERA^ MARCH 2020 http://www.digitalcameraworld.com