Saturday
Once off the Stirling train & checked-in at the hostel on Shandwick Place, it was off to Grindlay St., for my deep tissue pummel with Stu at Harmonic Osteopathy.
After that, a quick look at the Charity shops around Tollcross, a bite at my usual (The Forest on the corner of Brougham St & Lauriston Place), then back home to change for the dance. It wasn't as far as last Saturday's dance, and I was in bed just after 11.
Good job ~ I had to be at Murrayfield by 0800, &; as the stadium's a 20 min walk from the hostel, & I'd need plenty of nosh (AKA porridge ;-q ) inside me if I was going to walk 26+ miles, it'd be an early alarm call.Sunday
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| Roseburn Terrace at about 25 to 8 |
Chris Paterson was going to be starting us off, & then walking with his family in the short one.
I set off from Shandwick Place about 0720, & the further I walked, the more kilts there were.
When I turned left at the end of the buildings in the pic, there were a lot of folk coming down Corstorphine Rd.
I kept my eyes peeled for Chris & found him for a quick pic.
I was well chuffed when he remembered me :-))
Well, I don't suppose there are many blonde Englishwomen in kilts supporting Scottish rugby who send Thank You cards with a 5 yr old orang utan on? ;-p
After the speeches & the cheering we set off.
Led by Chris, we headed north out of the
stadium,
curved round Roseburn Park & back towards the beginning of the Roseburn Path ~ an elevated walk/cycle route along an old railway line.
We went along here for quite a way, then dropped off it to the west to walk past Lauriston Castle along Barnston Gardens towards Cramond.
Two things to mention here:
1: At the bottom end of Barnston Gardens is a road called Quality St, but they don't make toffees there, as far as I'm aware! ;-p
2: Cramond. Reknowned in literature as the place Miss Jean Brodie spent her spare time with her lover & her favourite 'Girrrrls' (here's a link if you've never heard of her The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Maggie Smith was awesome btw).
I first went to Crammond in 2008 during a 6 Nations weekend, & I met Ronald Rae chipping away at a big block of granite. He said it was going to be an elephant family, & told me about his lion sculpture in Holyrood Park. Being into cats we went for a look, & this is a picture I got off the net.
Isn't he lovely :-))
While I was writing this, I got in touch with the sculptor & asked him about his elephant(s). His wife, Pauline, sent me these:
She also sent this info.:
The Lion in St Andrews Square is on loan to Edinburgh. We would like to find a permanent home for it. In a perfect world Edinburgh should buy it for the city. It also looked good at Holyrood Park.
Isn't that cool?
After I'd finished the blog & published it, Pauline E'd to say she couldn't see the elephants, which I thought was odd, because I could see them in Preview. Having spoken to my cat sitter, IT guru & good mate, Bat, it turned out that because I'd copied & pasted from the Email instead of downloading them, they wouldn't transfer onto the blog when viewed by A N Other.
Doh!
I'm an IT doofus, & thank the gods for peeps like Bat :-)
While Pauline & I were to-ing & fro-ing with Es, she sent me this fish, which is on the shore at Cramond.
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I never thought to look left that morning, I was too busy marching on!
I'd love The Lion in my garden, but I'll have to settle for saying Hello when I walking through St Andrew's Sq.
By Cramond, we'd walked a smidgen more than 5 miles, or, about 1/5 of the way :-)
Here, we curved left down the road to the river (Almond), then right along the river for a 100yds or so, then from there, it was east along the shore path to Granton.
The walk between Cramond and Granton on the Kiltwalk is one I'd like to do again sometime.
Preferably when it's not damp!
It's about 4.5 miles between Cramond & the other side of Granton along the front, & come Granton I had passed quite a few, & was motoring along too fast to take any pics. There was a cute little harbour, & some nice looking waterfront cafes etc. Worth a second look sometime. Prob sometime when I'm not due at Murrayfield for a game? ;-)
After the pit-stop it was back to walking along the Leith roads in an approx SE direction until we went over the railway line & hit the shore again at Seafield, just north of Portobello.
From there we had the Forth to our left for a couple of miles as we walked along the Portobello promenade into Joppa for our next pit-stop. It reminded me of 2 previous stays in Portobello in the past: once for a Karate tournament at Meadowbank, & once for the Scotland v New Zealand game at the 2007 RWC.
Between the Leith & the Joppa pit-stop it was about 3.5 miles, & so far we had covered slightly more than half the route :-)
Fed & watered we set off again, & before we got to Musselburgh we were directed to a path heading west south west (more or less) along the side of Bruntstane Burn. It was nice to stay off roads, & we were on this path for a bit, meandering through Bingham, Niddrie & Duddingston until we got to a path above the golf course at Prestonfield (another memory from RWC 2007 when we stayed at Prestonfield for a couple of nights ~ loadsa£!).
Generally, the route was paths rather than roads, & ( eventually ) we
ended up on Queens Drive in Holyrood Park with the Craggs up on the right.
I walked this bit with a guy who was having Real trouble with his feet. He was local(ish) & had done the walk the year before. I kept him company until pit-stop3, but felt I needed to push on before mine complained as well. At that point there were 6+ miles to go.
The Queens drive bit was really nice, & there was no sign or sound that Scotland's capital city was only a few metres away.
The route went round the west edge of the park until our 3rd pit-stop, not far from where Ronald Rae's lion had been in 2008.
.
The Lion had gone, & I was sad.
Being a Leo & loving cats, I would love a lion in my garden (or a tiger, cheetah, leopard, jaguar, cougar et al & etc. !)
Cuddling a big cat is on my bucket list ;-p
Anyway . . .
The next bit of the route went up the wynds behind the Parliament building, crossed the Royal Mile, & went round the back of Calton Hill, before heading back towards the New Town & all the lovely Georgian streets :-))
& cobbles :-((
We crossed the Water Of Leith at Warriston, & took the Goldenacre Path more or less northerly all the way past Ferry Rd & up to Trinity. Here there was a sharp left onto an unnamed path set between banks of greenery. I'd like to bet it was an old railway line, & the route followed it in a virtually straight line for about a mile. After pit-stop 4, it curved left & joined up with the Blackhall Path, so I'm pretty sure it must be an old rail track through the city to Leith?
I must admit, straight paths & nothing to look at but bushy banks got a bit boring after at bit, & led to far too much concentrating on the state of one's feet :-/
As I said, somewhere along this path was the 4th & final pit-stop, & my last sit down before Murrayfield.
It was quite an extended one ~ prob about 10 min?
From about 20 miles in they started putting signs up to say how far you'd come.
They may have done it all the way round?
If they did, I didn't notice until my feet & legs began to make themselves heard!
25 point something miles done at this point :-) so I stopped to take this. I have scoured 'Street View' on Gmaps to try & find a red iron bridge over something.
I even got in touch with VisitScotland in Edinburgh, but no-one there recognised it.
If you know, please send me a message.
We came down to Roseburn the way we went up, & walked back into the stadium through the South Stand entrance where there were Goody Bags for everyone.
It turns out I did the 26 miles in 8hrs 1 minute, & Boy, was I ready for some major carbs . . . . . . .
~ which I ate whilst awaiting my free massage.
For another pic of a Hughie leftover, see the Hamilton blog.
If you want to, that is ;-)
There were a few hardy souls having a bit of a dance in the entertainment tent. As most were sproglets, I expect they hadn't done the big walk.
No idea who he is.
If you recognise him, send me a message.
After the 'bit of a dance' (even yours truly wasn't up to much after >26 miles & 8 hours walking), I toddled off back to the hostel.
As I had walked from there to Murrayfield & back again, that put the score on the door as nearly 30 miles that day. Gosh!
& here's me thinking the 15 miles the previous Monday* had been a long one!
So, that was the Edinburgh Kiltwalk 2013.
Maybe you could do one sometime?
OAO
* see Day 1 of the Cateran Trail blog
After the speeches & the cheering we set off.
Led by Chris, we headed north out of the
stadium,
curved round Roseburn Park & back towards the beginning of the Roseburn Path ~ an elevated walk/cycle route along an old railway line.
We went along here for quite a way, then dropped off it to the west to walk past Lauriston Castle along Barnston Gardens towards Cramond.
Two things to mention here:
1: At the bottom end of Barnston Gardens is a road called Quality St, but they don't make toffees there, as far as I'm aware! ;-p
2: Cramond. Reknowned in literature as the place Miss Jean Brodie spent her spare time with her lover & her favourite 'Girrrrls' (here's a link if you've never heard of her The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Maggie Smith was awesome btw).
I first went to Crammond in 2008 during a 6 Nations weekend, & I met Ronald Rae chipping away at a big block of granite. He said it was going to be an elephant family, & told me about his lion sculpture in Holyrood Park. Being into cats we went for a look, & this is a picture I got off the net.
Isn't he lovely :-))While I was writing this, I got in touch with the sculptor & asked him about his elephant(s). His wife, Pauline, sent me these:
 |
| Ronald Rae hand carving at Cramond |
She also sent this info.:
Here are 3 pics of the Elephant Family one showing Ronald Rae working on it. The granite comes from Aberdeenshire. It has been carbon dated at 470 million years old. The stone weighs 10 tonnes. Ronald carved it using hand tools only. This sculpture is currently on exhibition at The Falkirk Wheel along with eight other Ronald Rae granite sculptures.
Isn't that cool?
After I'd finished the blog & published it, Pauline E'd to say she couldn't see the elephants, which I thought was odd, because I could see them in Preview. Having spoken to my cat sitter, IT guru & good mate, Bat, it turned out that because I'd copied & pasted from the Email instead of downloading them, they wouldn't transfer onto the blog when viewed by A N Other.
Doh!
I'm an IT doofus, & thank the gods for peeps like Bat :-)
While Pauline & I were to-ing & fro-ing with Es, she sent me this fish, which is on the shore at Cramond.
I never thought to look left that morning, I was too busy marching on!
I'd love The Lion in my garden, but I'll have to settle for saying Hello when I walking through St Andrew's Sq.
By Cramond, we'd walked a smidgen more than 5 miles, or, about 1/5 of the way :-)
Here, we curved left down the road to the river (Almond), then right along the river for a 100yds or so, then from there, it was east along the shore path to Granton.
 |
| By the Cramond/Granton shore path we were pretty spread out, but I was quite near the front & gaining ;-p |
The walk between Cramond and Granton on the Kiltwalk is one I'd like to do again sometime.
Preferably when it's not damp!
It's about 4.5 miles between Cramond & the other side of Granton along the front, & come Granton I had passed quite a few, & was motoring along too fast to take any pics. There was a cute little harbour, & some nice looking waterfront cafes etc. Worth a second look sometime. Prob sometime when I'm not due at Murrayfield for a game? ;-)
Eventually the route took us away from the shore & along roads into Leith, where the 1st loo, food & drink stop was. There was some jugglers etc., & a band/singers having a Singalong with anyone who wanted to join in.
It was all very convivial, & I took a few moments to text a few folk. It was nice to get 'encouraging' texts back almost immediately :-)
 |
| Leith Singalong |
After the pit-stop it was back to walking along the Leith roads in an approx SE direction until we went over the railway line & hit the shore again at Seafield, just north of Portobello.
From there we had the Forth to our left for a couple of miles as we walked along the Portobello promenade into Joppa for our next pit-stop. It reminded me of 2 previous stays in Portobello in the past: once for a Karate tournament at Meadowbank, & once for the Scotland v New Zealand game at the 2007 RWC.
Between the Leith & the Joppa pit-stop it was about 3.5 miles, & so far we had covered slightly more than half the route :-)
Fed & watered we set off again, & before we got to Musselburgh we were directed to a path heading west south west (more or less) along the side of Bruntstane Burn. It was nice to stay off roads, & we were on this path for a bit, meandering through Bingham, Niddrie & Duddingston until we got to a path above the golf course at Prestonfield (another memory from RWC 2007 when we stayed at Prestonfield for a couple of nights ~ loadsa£!).
Generally, the route was paths rather than roads, & ( eventually ) we
ended up on Queens Drive in Holyrood Park with the Craggs up on the right.I walked this bit with a guy who was having Real trouble with his feet. He was local(ish) & had done the walk the year before. I kept him company until pit-stop3, but felt I needed to push on before mine complained as well. At that point there were 6+ miles to go.
The Queens drive bit was really nice, & there was no sign or sound that Scotland's capital city was only a few metres away.
The route went round the west edge of the park until our 3rd pit-stop, not far from where Ronald Rae's lion had been in 2008.
 |
| I don't think she was calling Hughie ;-p She was probably just stretching her back!? |
The Lion had gone, & I was sad.
Being a Leo & loving cats, I would love a lion in my garden (or a tiger, cheetah, leopard, jaguar, cougar et al & etc. !)
Cuddling a big cat is on my bucket list ;-p
Anyway . . .
The next bit of the route went up the wynds behind the Parliament building, crossed the Royal Mile, & went round the back of Calton Hill, before heading back towards the New Town & all the lovely Georgian streets :-))
& cobbles :-((
We crossed the Water Of Leith at Warriston, & took the Goldenacre Path more or less northerly all the way past Ferry Rd & up to Trinity. Here there was a sharp left onto an unnamed path set between banks of greenery. I'd like to bet it was an old railway line, & the route followed it in a virtually straight line for about a mile. After pit-stop 4, it curved left & joined up with the Blackhall Path, so I'm pretty sure it must be an old rail track through the city to Leith?
I must admit, straight paths & nothing to look at but bushy banks got a bit boring after at bit, & led to far too much concentrating on the state of one's feet :-/
As I said, somewhere along this path was the 4th & final pit-stop, & my last sit down before Murrayfield.
It was quite an extended one ~ prob about 10 min?
From about 20 miles in they started putting signs up to say how far you'd come.
They may have done it all the way round?
If they did, I didn't notice until my feet & legs began to make themselves heard!
25 point something miles done at this point :-) so I stopped to take this. I have scoured 'Street View' on Gmaps to try & find a red iron bridge over something.
I even got in touch with VisitScotland in Edinburgh, but no-one there recognised it.
If you know, please send me a message.
We came down to Roseburn the way we went up, & walked back into the stadium through the South Stand entrance where there were Goody Bags for everyone.
 |
| The guy with 'the feet' checking out his Goody Bag |
~ which I ate whilst awaiting my free massage.
 |
| There were about 8 beds with Physios pummelling. A good bit of 'Forearm along the Calf' going on here. Oooo! |
I guess the carbs & the massages helped us all get home again
(despite the pasta looking a bit like Hughie's leftovers ;-p!).
For another pic of a Hughie leftover, see the Hamilton blog.
If you want to, that is ;-)
There were a few hardy souls having a bit of a dance in the entertainment tent. As most were sproglets, I expect they hadn't done the big walk.No idea who he is.
If you recognise him, send me a message.
After the 'bit of a dance' (even yours truly wasn't up to much after >26 miles & 8 hours walking), I toddled off back to the hostel.
As I had walked from there to Murrayfield & back again, that put the score on the door as nearly 30 miles that day. Gosh!
& here's me thinking the 15 miles the previous Monday* had been a long one!
So, that was the Edinburgh Kiltwalk 2013.
Maybe you could do one sometime?
OAO
* see Day 1 of the Cateran Trail blog
