24 Hours in Edinburgh

Afternoon: Downtown Edinburgh

East Princes Street Garden:

View over the north walls of Edinburgh Castle:
In the castle's Middle Ward, just around the corner from Foog's Gate (entrance to the Upper Ward):
1970's bio/chem/nuke hazard suit and early WWI-era gas mask hood, in the castle's Military Museum:

St. Giles Cathedral, perhaps the "mother ship" for FAPC, had an interesting but depressing exhibit about modern-day slavery (called "Slave Britannia"), and also a wall of visitors' photographs of their favorite aspects of Edinburgh (with footnotes explaining their signifcance).


View of Calton Hill and the National Monument (?) from the North Bridge:

The flag proudly waves:

Evening and Morning: An Expedition to South Queensferry (the Burbs)

Oddly, as I was preparing to take this picture, 3 different hand-holding couples strolled by, blocking the sign. How annoying. I had to wait for them to clear the frame.

When you get to the historic heart of South Queensferry, you can see lovely old buildings like the Ferry Tap. Portions of it date from 1674, other portions date from 1683. You have to shake your head about this long-standing obsession of property owners to expand and modernize.

South Queensferry is on the Forth River, near its mouth (or "firth"). By an amazing coincidence, I learned that very night that the BBC ranked the Firth of Forth Bridge as #5 of the Top 10 bridges in the entire world. So I had to go see it in the morning. (Although their rating system ranked the Brooklyn Bridge #6, so it may not be entirely reliable.) This trains-only bridge, aka the "Forth Rail Bridge", was officially opened in 1890, but was built to last. According to wikipedia, the bridge

is 2.5 km (1.5 miles) in length, and the double track is elevated 46 m (approx. 150 ft) above high tide. It consists of two main spans of 1,710 ft, two side spans of 675 ft, 15 approach spans of 168 ft, and five of 25 ft. Each main span comprises two 680 ft cantilever arms supporting a central 350 ft span girder bridge. The three great four-tower cantilever structures are 340 ft (104 m) tall, each 70 ft diameter foot resting on a separate foundation.

It does look rather impressive:


The Forth is actually spanned by two bridges, but only one of them made the BBC's Top 10. (The other one is known as the Forth Road Bridge.)

As I explored neighborhoods near Dalmeny Rail Station for additional glimpses of the Firth of Forth Bridge, I came across this rather menacing scene. Is it a roller coaster in the background? Or the spiny scales of a gigantic monster?

After that, it was good at last to return home to the gentle lines of the Brooklyn Bridge and yes, even the Verrezano Bridge:

Day 6: Grantown to Aviemore

Navigation: First Day

The last day of The Walk was 17 easy and flat miles, although we ended up walking a bit further thanks to the organizers of the Speyside Way.

We saw cornflowers en route - an unusual blue hue rather than the more typical Scottish purples.


This stretch of the Way was more built-up. For instance, rather than loose planks thrown on top of soggy ground, we had a bona fide boardwalk with handrails to allow us to overlook a grassy marsh without muddying our boots or needing to pull each other out of bogs.

There were two dragonflies on the railing of the boardwalk. They may have been engaged in a G-rated wrestling match. Or they may have been attempting to increase the number of dragonflies in the world. You decide.


We saw a fair amount of wildlife today, including 2 red squirrels and a small red deer. Also bears (OK, maybe the bears don't really count).
The old railbed path took us within easy access to the renovated Strathspey Railway. The steam engine was reconstructed along with a new rail track for tourists and railroad buffs. The station is in operation (it sells rail tickets and gifts), and features a picnic table suitable for walkers. But the most distinctive part of the experience is the vintage advertisements posted around the place.

No offense to Rowntree's, but when I hear "Pastilles", I think "Puking Pastilles" (as per George and Fred Weasley):
RunnerNYC might be able to use some Rodine on her early morning subway excursions....


I also liked this modern hotel sign:


Alas, lunch time came to an end and we picked up the trail again as the steam train started its i-THINK-i-can rhythm, faster and faster until it was a collection of clickety-clacks in the distance.

Today's trail again went through grassy forest....

...and finished in a light track through a glorious field of heather ringed by mountains.







When I say "finished", however, I mean only that the Nature part of the trail finished. We had another 2 miles to go as we trekked on past some giant seed-themed sculptures...


...then circumnavigated a half-built housing development, and then trudged into town where Bill and Frank treated us to ices. We continued on, down the main drag, looking for the trail end markers. We eventually found a map of the Speyside Way near the Aviemore public toilets, but no trail markers. They just petered out. Nothing. We asked around, even at the Tourist Information office, and learned that Aviemore had no official markers for the start/end of the trail. Curses, foiled again! We should have posed with the "end" stones in Buckie on the first day, after all. Grrrr. For what it's worth, the official Speyside Way web site claims that "[t]he Way ... finishes at the car park by the [Aviemore] Police Station."

We settled into our final B&B, nursed our wounds and napped (or, in Bill's case, explored the town), then got together for our final celebratory dinner.


My companions reached the 80-mile mark in 6 days; I completed a more modest 67 miles in 5 days. We all basked in a sense of accomplishment and camaraderie, aided and abetted by 3 (?!) bottles of wine.

Navigation: Postlude

Days 4-5: Ballindalloch to Tomintoul to Grantown

We took the 15-mile spur, basically a detour away from the River Spey, roughly following (at a distance) the River Avon to Tomintoul. We stopped en route at the Glenlivet distillery which (certain folk were horrified to learn) is now owned by the Frogs, er, I mean a French company. Frank and I enjoyed the cozy armchairs by the fireplace, while the others went on an extended tour of the distillery. (The bottom line was they liked the 18-year scotch better than the 12-year scotch, but bought nothing.)



There were two 1800-foot hills to climb on the way, not quite "grahams", but steep enough to make the going a bit tough at times. The views were lovely, though.

We descended through fields of heather.

And passed through sheep pastures, to the great dismay and confusion of the sheep. (This earned me a boot cleaning from U.S. Customs on my return to the States.)

We enjoyed a nice dinner at the Clockhouse Restaurant in Tomintoul. The next day, at our usual start time, the five of us piled into the van with all the luggage. Everyone else was deposited at Ballindalloch to resume the regular course of the Speyside Way. Me, I stayed with the baggage, traveling in style to Grantown. The journey passed quickly, as the driver and I discussed topics ranging from bearable and nonbearable neighborhoods in New York City to the mollycoddling of children and what constitutes the ideal family size. We drove around Grantown at random for a while until we found the Brooklyn B&B. I then hung out in a local park most of the day, reading Mutiny on the Bounty. The entire Grantown Museum took approximately 20 minutes to peruse (a waste of 2 quid), but a nice lunch of chicken chat masala and chana saag made up for it. All this lollygagging around meant I logged zero miles, to my companions' thirteen. I had thought I was skipping an "easy day", but at dinner (to which Frank magnanimously treated the entire gang), we compared notes and it became clear that this was actually the most challenging terrain of the Walk.

Navigation: Next Day

Day 3: Craigellachie to Ballindalloch

We continued south on the former trailbed of the Strathspey Railway through Aberlour, where we stopped in at the visitors' center.


There we learned, to our astonishment, that there is no official certificate, button or badge to commemorate the completion of the Speyside Way. Apparently, the powers that be could not agree on a format. So there's not even a lousy T-shirt. After we expressed our indignation and announced our readiness to design and sell our OWN badges and certificates, the woman brought out copies of a prototype button (with the wrong start and end names) and gave them to us.

Bill very kindly bought us sandwiches at the local shop in Aberlour, and I invested in my own packets of Compeed bandages. Finally, we continued on our way to Carron, where Bill was rewarded for his generosity by getting to be the engineer of a garden-train:


All of my pictures of Scottish thistle came out blurry, unfortunately:

Finally, we arrived at Ballindalloch, where our hosts had large mushroom sculptures at each end of the driveway:

Tony and Helen were lovely, and the food was superb. I slept better at Cragganmore House than I did anywhere else on the Walk. They also had an impressive assortment of games, including mahjong (which we enjoyed loudly well into the evening, to Bob's chagrin).

Navigation: Next Day

Day 2: Fochabers to Craigellachie

The official Speyside Way site describes the five-mile route from Fochabers to Boat o' Brig as "a very minor tarred road".

We took a small detour to look out on the River Spey, where I changed boots.


We made it to Boat o' Brig without incident, and took a detour to wander onto the bridge and look over the river again.


According to a posting on RootsWeb:

"The bridge carrying the road from Rothes to Boharm crosses the Spey at the
west of the viaduct (railway viaduct built in 1906). An iron suspension
bridge was built in 1840 replacing the old ferry known as 'Boat o' Brig' but
it in turn has been replaced by a new 235 foot span steel bridge built in
1956 by Banff County Council at a cost of GBP30,000."
Third Statistical Account Moray and Nairn (Collins 1965).

Across from Boat o' Brig, the path immediately ascends through the forest, and indeed, the remaining eight miles from Boat o' Brig to Craigellachie is mostly "over forest roads as it climbs round the shoulder of Ben Aigen through the Craigellachie Forest".

We stopped at a roadside stream/waterfall for lunch, where there were convenient sitting-stones lining the corner of the road.

Unfortunately, the waterfall is difficult to see in a photograph when the camera points into the bright Scottish sun.

Soon afterward we met a German hiker going the opposite way -- the first walker we'd seen on the trail! He warned us of the "slippy" conditions on the spur, and told us his wife was traveling with him by train rather than on foot. He had a clear plastic bag of freshly picked yellow-orange mushrooms, but we didn't try any. (We thought perhaps he would cook them for his wife over a campfire that night, before she went back to her hotel.) Here is a sample of the landscape as we rounded the corner, with the Spey snaking through farmlands.

A photogenic trio further brightens the scene:

As we approached Craigellachie, we spotted a bridge with two turrets on each end.


We passed by the Fiddichside Inn (actually a pub) in our rush to get to our night's lodgings, but noted its prime location on the river for later reference.

Sure enough, we returned for drinks ... after we dealt with Mrs. Bucket and The Crisis of Paying Guests Who Arrive Unexpectedly In Mid-Afternoon Just As They Said They Would Even Though She Has Invited Non-Paying Dinner Guests for the Same Time And Failed to Reserve A Sufficient Number of Rooms. Luckily, the lodge wasn't full (except of Mrs. Bucket's crises and dinner guests), so Mr. Bucket quietly saved the day by steering each of us to a suitable room.

For dinner, we took the recommendation of the Fochaber's running shop owner and enjoyed a good meal at the Highlander despite the chef's absence.

Navigation: Next Day

Day 1: Buckie to Fochabers

What better way to celebrate the end of summer, than with a multi-day hike through the Scottish Highlands -- a place (Sarah warned me) where we would need both heavy waterproof gear and anti-blister bandages? Where we could expect to be soaked to the bone with horizontal rain at least one day out of six, and intermittently drenched the other five days? Not your standard sales pitch, to be sure, but I couldn't resist.

I flew in to Edinburgh on August 31, caught a city bus to Waverley Station, then a train to Inverness, and another train to Elgin (surprisingly pronounced with a hard "g"). From Elgin, I planned to take a bus to Buckie, the northern end of the Speyside Way. At the Elgin train station, I looked around for the bus depot, but didn't see any sign of it. There were no area maps posted, and the rail station clerk gave me ominously vague walking directions to the bus depot. As I turned to go, steeling myself for a walk of uncertain duration to an unclear destination, my fellow-walkers Bob and Frank swooped in and rescued me with a lift to Buckie. Hooray!


As anticipated, we met up with Sarah and Bill at the hotel's pub. After a good night's rest, and entrusting our luggage to the care of our taxi service, the five of us moseyed down the street to the coast for the beginning of the Walk.

The official northern end of the Speyside Way features a pair of stones on either side of the path, marked "START" on the side facing north and "END" on the south side. We all posed for group photos with the "START" side showing. We kidded around about taking pictures with the "END" side showing, to create the false impression that we were just as cool, calm and collected after hiking 77 miles. Our biographers should note that we had the strength of character to resist that particular temptation, and that we later paid a heavy price for it (see Day 6).

The Walk started out rather flat. From Buckpool Harbor, the route hugs the shoreline to Portgordon.


There were plenty of wildflowers, especially pinks and purples, as the the path turned from street and track along the coast to "old railway and forest":


The path was flat and wide, and - amazingly - it was not raining. (In fact, we had phenomenal weather throughout the trip.) Everyone was in good spirits.

We soon reached "Speybay, at the mouth of the river." Here is a glimpse of the river Spey from the path. Although the current is quite strong, it is a popular fishing area. Garbed in waterproof wading overalls, fishermen (and the odd fisherwoman) pay for licenses to stand in the middle of the river and seek out salmon.

We went in and out of forest, alongside the river. The trees at some points looked suspiciously aligned, a fact that may suggest to some that this is not ancient forest.

We saw some bright orange flowers in the woods.

We stopped at a small park on the edge of Fochabers, looking out over the Spey.

After dinner, we came back to this area to look for wildlife (a recurring theme). We saw several bats swooping low over the water in great ellipses, chasing insects.



The first day was a short and sweet introduction to the Walk. Sarah and I had the opportunity to explore the town, scope out the best sandwiches, and chat with the owner of the Runners' Shop (per the awning) a/k/a the Leisure Shop (per the sandwich board). The shop primarily sold running gear, but the owner looked to be more on the leisure side than the runner side of things. He was curious about us, however, and very friendly and helpful. He gave us a recommendation for our next port of call on Day 2, which proved to be a good one. Meanwhile, Bill befriended the owner of our B&B, who then staunchly resisted our attempts to provide him with salty porridge for breakfast (he had already placed an order for salt-free porridge with milk and honey). Alas for mischief averted!

Navigation: Next Day

Goodbye, New York

So it's about an hour before I get a ride to the airport. I'm so glad I took two extra days off before the trip, allegedly to pack, but really to relax and enjoy the last of summer. My place is still pretty clean from the party on Sunday, and I've dealt with most of the leftovers so there shouldn't be too many green fuzzy things to greet me when I return. Yesterday afternoon I did a load of laundry and went for a quick rollerblading jaunt (7 miles, with hills). I've started reading Rise and Shine by Anna Quindlen (and prominently featured by Rev. Purdue this past Sunday). I've packed about twice as much as I'll actually need, and it all fits. I know where to go in Edinburgh and which trains/buses to take. I have things to read and listen to on the plane. My inner thigh hurts (and looks ugly as heck) where the incision was made, but I'm on antibiotics and OTC painkillers so that should be fine. My brother and his family have sold their old place and are almost completely moved into the new place; they can hear crickets at night (!) and LC is happily playing every day in the back yard. I'm hoping to see them the weekend of 9/21. And I've signed up for a very cool rafting trip in July 2008. Sunshine streaming in. Life is good.