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Leuchars
Day 9. 65.4 miles.

Leuchars-we are reliably informed by the Internet-is near stuff. And it has a nice church which was unfortunately restored.

Seriously, I did my due diligence and digested all the sites I could find about Leuchars. It’s near Dundee, as we know. It’s near Guardbridge. It’s near RAF Leuchars, it’s got a train line running through it where people get off to travel to nearby St. Andrews. It’s not too far from Cupar. It’s quite close to the Tay Bridge (rebuilt after collapsing one stormy night killing a trainfull of people. I suppose I could have mentioned that when we stopped at Dundee. Especially since it inspired one of Scotland’s more atrocious poets-William McGonnagal-to write a seriously dreadful poem. On a side note, my spell checker wants to change McGonnagal to Octagonal. Which, given his style of poetry, is strangely fitting).

RAF Leuchars-located predictably nearby-was once home to the US Quick Reaction Alert squadron whose job it would be to stem the red tide should the Soviets choose to invade Europe and settle in Leuchars because it’s so well situated. The unit was relocated after the end of the Cold War, and now the airbase is home to the wonderfully named Eurofighter Typhoon.

As for the church I metioned in passing, apparently the 12th Century St Athernase Church is beautiful with a lovely interior and to quote one site, “the nave has unfortunately been rebuilt”. Presumably it would have been better left nave free. Wouldn’t that let the rain in? After all, Leuchars, we are told, is near the ocean and thus has an Oceanic climate.

As we learned, one of the places Leuchars is famous for being near to is St Andrews. Let’s walk there now and hope when we arrive, the Internet won’t play a grand prank on us and list St. Andrews as a town being notable because it’s not too far from Leuchars