My wife and I went for a nice 5 mile walk along the river in Edinburgh today to get some exercise.
I know that there are Kingfishers along this particular stretch of the river, called the Water of Leith. I've never seen one, so I'm always on the look out, and yet again we didnt see one today :( Maybe one day !
We started off at Saughton Park, just by the lovely gardens that are there, and then headed in the direction of Slateford.
Saughton Park is quite cool as it has its own small scale green electricity generation scheme which uses an Archimedes Screw to make 39KW of energy from this weir. It powers all the buildings in the park including powering ground source heat pumps to heat the greenhouses !
It wasnt such a bad day and the sun was trying to make an appearance.
These anti-climbing features are on the bridge in the previous picture - I always think they look quite pretty !
I like the graffiti in the pic above - whoever done it must have gotten into the river to do it ! Thats dedication to their cause !
A little further along and we spotted this abandoned pub which looks in the process of being pulled down - maybe of interest to our Urbex friends !
We passed a large allotment which provides small patches of land for people who dont have gardens. It looks like this person is growing plastic bottles !
And closer to Slateford we pass under these two bridges. The first is a rail bridge and the second one carries the canal over the area and on into Edinburgh !
These pigeons were nesting in the brickwork gaps in the Canal bridge.
And another piece of graffiti - it tickled me !
The river visitor centre was about half way along our walk. Quite handy as we stopped in for a cup of tea and a cake on the way back !
The walk is quite nice and there are a number of paths which lead on and off it. To be fair, the city has done not too bad a job of providing greenway paths - there are quite a few around that take you away from the traffic.
We spotted this enclosed area above - no idea whats going on there. Maybe its a circusmaximus for snails ?
And this old folly can be found along the path as well - quite pretty - for romantic liaisons maybe ?
And we loved the tree above - the branches really do look like arms !
Well we really loved our walk, and it was great that we managed to get 5 miles under our belt - it was lovely to be able to catch some nice greenery and river views, even if we didnt see any Kingfishers !
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