Walking the Water of Leith

Shortly after we arrived here, I picked up a great little book called Edinburgh - 40 Town and Country Walks by Kerry Nelson. I really liked the look of it for many reasons, such as how most of the walks were outside of downtown Edinburgh in places we'd probably never find ourselves. There were also walks of all different terrains and durations, but the thing that ultimately sold me on it was how it tells you how to get to each trailhead by bus. All the other books I saw assume you have a car and provide driving directions to the nearest parking lot. This one tells you which bus to take, and where to get off, which is invaluable information for those of us non-car owners. (Besides, needing a car to go walking is almost a contradiction.)

On Saturday afternoon, B and I decided to go on a walk listed in the book called "Union Canal and the Quay". It starts by taking a bus for about 20 minutes to a place called Kingsknowe, and then walking for about 2 hours along the Union Canal back into town again. We started walking down the canal and after a short time, we wound up at the Water of Leith Visitor Centre. We both noticed that the Water of Leith Walkway looked much nicer than the path we had been following by the canal, so we decided to change course and do the walkway instead. (And in fairness to my trusty book, it does say that you can do both the Union Canal and the Water of Leith to make it a loop.)

It turned out to be a really good move - I felt like we were really away from the city in some parts. We did battle with a bit of rain: the first time it started we were close to a pub, so we had a pint and waited for it to pass before continuing on the trail. The second time it started raining we weren't so lucky, but we were about to head off the trail towards downtown anyway.

Anyway, there were so many awesome things on the way, I decided to put up a captioned slideshow of photos from the Water of Leith walk (or alternately you can check out the plain version.) Just click on the signpost below to begin! Note: I've had a couple of people claim that these slideshows don't work for them, so please let me know if they don't work for you!)