Tentsmuir Point – Seals on the Sandbars
A few hours.
The route
Tentsmuir Point is the far north-east corner of Fife, where pine forest and dunes run out to wide sands at the mouth of the Tay.
Seals haul out on the sandbars offshore to rest, and on a low tide you can watch them from the shore through binoculars. It's a lovely walk along a long, quiet beach, for anyone who wants to see seals without a boat.
Before you go
Book accommodation nearby
If you are staying over: here are ours nearest where the day starts and ends.
The day
Tentsmuir
A walk north along the sands and through the pines to Tentsmuir Point, timed for a low tide. Then a quiet hour with the binoculars, watching the seals on the sandbars from a respectful distance.
About three hoursAbout 3 miles on foot
Tentsmuir Point
Park in the Tentsmuir car park at the end of the long forest road signed for Kinshaldy Beach, off the B945 between Leuchars and Tayport. You pay £4 for the day at the barrier at the time of writing, and the car park is open from 8am until 9pm from April to October and until dusk from November to March, with toilets beside it. From here Tentsmuir Point is about 2.5 km north, along the beach or by the forest tracks of the Ice House Trail, which pass the old ice house and the nature reserve's information pavilion; allow about 40 minutes each way. Seals often rest on the sandbars off the point when the tide is low, so look up the tide times before you go and bring binoculars. The reserve asks everyone to stay at least 150 metres from the seals and never to walk out on the sandbars towards them. A frightened seal stampeding into the water can injure or kill a young one, and the tide comes in quickly behind anyone far out. Keep a dog on a lead the whole way. Back at the car park, Salt and Pine does coffee and crêpes.
If it rains
There is no shelter at the point: on a wet day the walk is long and the seals hard to see through rain.
Salt and Pine, crêpes by Kinshaldy beach.
Photographs by Thomas Andy Branson and Shar Suth via Google