Rural Scotland

After a hard work week I was looking forward to today, leap day, taking it off to do some more hiking. No such luck. The weather is gross. But I thought I might share a few photos from recent walks, all remarkably near Edinburgh.

Christina, Z and I went to see Lauriston Castle and the suburb of Cramond. It is adjacent to the same body of water we live along, the Firth of Forth. The castle is publicly owned and, while they weren't giving tours that day, the grounds were beautiful, and we had them all to ourselves. After the castle we walked out to Cramond Island, which is about a half a mile walk across a strip of land when the tide is out.





More recently we hopped on a bus going to another castle. Except it wasn't the right bus, and we ended up nowhere near the castle. We did, however, end up at a splendidly pastoral stretch of land on the edge of the Pentlands, just south of Edinburgh. We pushed the stroller a mile and a half up a muddy trail, but the views were worth it. It was the first time we had genuinely been out of the urban environment in months, so it felt good.





And just last weekend I went out for a "stroll" with friends from church. Six hours later my feet were hamburger, but we did see some tremendous tracks of land. Scotland has a roaming law that allows hikers to cross other people's property, permitting us to see some fairly remote areas of the Borders, a surprisingly uninhabited stretch along the England-Scotland dividing line. I especially enjoyed the number of grouse spotted along the way (how I miss my shotgun!), as well as some old-school stone sheep pens.





With a new baby backpack, we're ready to take on more trails. We're here in Scotland, right? We'd be fools to hole ourselves up in the city.