LEJOG day 49: Carlops to Edinburgh
I had a friend for my walk today! Dan lives in Edinburgh and is kindly hosting me, saving me a couple of nights in a B&B or youth hostel, and also came out on a bus marathon to join me for the 14 miles back in.
After a bit of a struggle identifying the road we wanted to take, which looked off-puttingly like someone's driveway, we had a nice walk across a lot more contour lines than I was expecting, but at least along a nice obvious track. We accidentally herded some calves along for a while before noticing their mothers trotting quite quickly along behind us, which was slightly alarming- my only real rule for cattle is "do not get between a cow and her calf"- but between us we sorted the situation out.
I had my first encounter with Scottish peat bog, which was very similar to English peat bog: wet and not fun to walk on. Once we made it around the hill, there was a decent path, which made it all rather better. From there, we had a road walk into Balerno, where we found a bench to eat our lunch, and then quite quickly made it onto the cycle path along the Water of Leith all the way into Edinburgh itself- a lovely green strip which kept us pretty sheltered from any of the realities of a capital city.
Two lovely moments, when we saw glimpses of the Castle and Arthur's Seat as we crossed a bridge and then an aqueduct on the Union Canal, and then we arrived!
Distance walked: I forgot to restart my GPS at one point, but according to Dan's, 15.38
Time taken: 4h33
Percentage completed: 68.2%
Miles per £1 of boot: 5.61
Days since I was last rained on: 0
Lunch: ham and cheese sandwich and wotsits and some nuts and chocolate
Last night's B&B: The Allan Ramsay hotel, Carlops: lovely room, at the back of the pub and quiet as a result, very nice staff
After a bit of a struggle identifying the road we wanted to take, which looked off-puttingly like someone's driveway, we had a nice walk across a lot more contour lines than I was expecting, but at least along a nice obvious track. We accidentally herded some calves along for a while before noticing their mothers trotting quite quickly along behind us, which was slightly alarming- my only real rule for cattle is "do not get between a cow and her calf"- but between us we sorted the situation out.
I had my first encounter with Scottish peat bog, which was very similar to English peat bog: wet and not fun to walk on. Once we made it around the hill, there was a decent path, which made it all rather better. From there, we had a road walk into Balerno, where we found a bench to eat our lunch, and then quite quickly made it onto the cycle path along the Water of Leith all the way into Edinburgh itself- a lovely green strip which kept us pretty sheltered from any of the realities of a capital city.
Two lovely moments, when we saw glimpses of the Castle and Arthur's Seat as we crossed a bridge and then an aqueduct on the Union Canal, and then we arrived!
Distance walked: I forgot to restart my GPS at one point, but according to Dan's, 15.38
Time taken: 4h33
Percentage completed: 68.2%
Miles per £1 of boot: 5.61
Days since I was last rained on: 0
Lunch: ham and cheese sandwich and wotsits and some nuts and chocolate
Last night's B&B: The Allan Ramsay hotel, Carlops: lovely room, at the back of the pub and quiet as a result, very nice staff
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