Having worked out that the canal is very slow, it was decided to carry onto Edinburgh today and make it before nightfall. At present, we are not seeing darkness until after 10pm so it was leaving us plenty of time.
It has been a very pretty canal with lots of green leafy surrounds and small villages.
We do need to comment though at the housing in Scotland, which in general is hardly inspiring. The more new builds show a little bit of design in them but on the whole the housing is bland.
We are fortunate in seeing spring wildlife which always brings a smile to your face. These two had their hands full for the summer.
This is coming through the small hamlet of Ratho which we will stop in on the way back and explore. At the moment it is full steam ahead to Edinburgh.
We traversed two aquaducts of which one went over a very busy motorway and we took great pains to get motorists to reply to our waves with horn toots – majority were not obliging but gave us some light entertainment.
It was then into sunny (dare we mention) Edinburgh where our last obstacle for the day was the Leamington Lift Bridge. We had booked the night before for a volunteer to be there to operate the bridge. It feels strange that we don’t get to do any work on the canal except to operate the boat – kinda takes a lot of the fun out of it. The bridge is only used by pedestrians and bikes now.
There is a clearance of 9’ so no limbo dancing required, even by Wolfgang who is 6’3”.
We got into the Basin at a very reasonable hour of 3.30pm which gave us a chance to settle in for the evening, have some dinner and then for Fras and Di wander out into the city.
Once we started off on our evening adventure, we soon began to realise just how close we were to the city centre.
The castle loomed above us and was most imposing. Not sure how many steps we climbed up to it but when we saw an ambulance scream passed us, Di felt very tempted to do a call out to it with her thumb.
When we crawled up the last step, we were right at the entrance to the castle grounds, so rather than spoil our visit for tomorrow, we decided to then walk down the Royal Mile. Arguably the most famous thoroughfare in Scotland’s capital city, the Royal Mile is actually a succession of different streets.
The Royal Mile is sometimes also known as Edinburgh’s High Street .The Royal Mile is almost exactly one mile (just over 1.6km) long.
Oh yes, and there was not a short supply of these shops along the way!!
At the bottom of The Mile is Holyrood Palace. Our plans were to include a visit to the palace but due to some hobnob in town the place was not open for visitors for our duration in Edinburgh.
Like Buckingham Palace, Holyrood is a working palace and Liz spends one week each summer, during which time investitures are held in the Great Gallery, audiences are held in the Morning Drawing Room, a luncheon takes place in the Throne Room to celebrate the installation of new Knights and Ladies of the Order of the Thistle, and garden parties are hosted. Don’t think we are going to get an invite any time soon.
Rowkin Rovings Blog 