18/7/26 Waters of Leith

 

  After the Royal Mile yesterday , we decided to have a quiet day , opting for a walk around the local area . There's some interesting stuff out here at Slateford , starting with the Aqueduct . It's a cast iron trough 500ft long designed to carry the Edinburgh & Glasgow Union Canal over the Water of Leith ( the creek below ) .

Beside it , there's another bridge for the railway lines .

To top it off , there's a walkway that runs alongside the canal that allows for a peaceful walk away from the road traffic . It's well used , we met probably 20 people , dogs & bikes on our short trip along it .

And what a great place for photos .

   There's also a variety of flowers growing beside the canal , here's a couple of them .

  We left the canal to visit a shop to replace our leaking cold pack , then continued our walk down some quiet streets . There were some impressive gardens and flowers . The residents here certainly love their yards .

Here's just some of the flowers out at the moment .

A small black flower , no bigger than a 20cent coin .

Roses are everywhere .

This small tree was magnificent , covered in pink blooms .

A smaller variety .

And another rose .

Back for lunch before we headed out again in the afternoon , this time to walk alongside the Water of Leith , flowing through some lovely forested areas beside all the houses .

We are probably at our most relaxed out in the bush , so this was a pleasant walk . Moss covered trees & rocks indicate how damp & cool this area normally is - we have struck it lucky with the weather so far dodging the heat waves further south of us , although everything is very dry here at the moment as well .

There's still water flowing down the creek ( they'll hate it being called a creek ) 

   The track took us up to a bridge over the creek and then we turned to follow it back down the other side . There is a walled garden further down that we couldn't access , but we walked around most of it , thanks to  a minor navigation error and a locked gate . The gate being open would've saved us another 1klm or so as we had to back track and get back to a street before returning down the main road . Another day done nicely , here's a map link :-  https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1hggBjUp4n59ryI8Gpxnu9UyqalEqfMY&usp=sharing