Through the hills of Scotland

---

Tuesday

Arriving in Edinburgh, the first thing we noticed was how much colder it was. Feeling unprepared, one of the first stops we made was to a gift shop and we purchase some nice fluffy Scottish hats. We felt that we were prepared to handle anything Scotland could through at us, as we planned to walk from Edinburgh to Glasgow, a long 15 hour hike that we would attempt in just two days. Knowing that we would have to save our batteries on our phones, we went to a hiking store to buy a compass and perhaps a map. The maps were too expensive and we felt it wouldn't be that necessary so we resolved to just get the compass. We had to explore Edinburgh for a while before we left, as there was good deal to see. We first went to Greyfriar's Kirk, an old cemetery that had a famed mascot of a faithful dog. Known as Greyfriar's Bobby, this dog stayed at his master's grave for 14 years until its death. They have a statue of him just outside the cemetery. Having gone ghost hunting last year during fall break, it seemed fitting that we should attempt to rile up some spirits. There was even an old prison area in the back of the cemetery, where the prisoners used to not be fed that well, so we tried to taunt the spirits with our food. I don't think it worked out too well. Next, we would unwisely attempt to scale to the top of Arthur's Seat, the name of the top peak of a nearby dormant volcano (we know from the beginning that it was a bad idea to hike up a tall hill before our long walk to Glasgow). Not knowing exactly how to access the trail to walk up to the top, we decided to just climb up the side that looked most convenient. It just so happens that it was a 40 degree angle incline that we were climbing up, and it was not that easy. Having just then reached a trail at the top of the hill we climbed, we realized that we would have to walk south quite a ways to reach Arthur's Seat, where the trail declined to almost street level, making our climb practically for nothing. But eventually we hiked up the very rocky trail and reached the summit of this dormant volcano. It was a great view overlooking the city. It made Edinburgh Castle, which towers over the center square of town, seem so insignificant. And the Sea far to the north looked to be so close by. It was a breathtaking experience. After returning to the city center, we dined at the supposedly world famous Frankenstein pub, which was a multi-floored restaurant that was repurposed from an old church. Only the main level was open at the time for lunch, but I sure would love to see the place in full swing during one of their many parties for Halloween. I ordered chicken with haggis mashed potatoes. I didn't know what haggis was at the time, But I knew it was a specialty of Scotland, so I had to eat some. It was cooked right into the mashed potatoes so it was pretty good. It tasted like ground beef. Little did I know at the time that haggis is actually sheep organs. It getting to be late in the afternoon, we had to leave for Glasgow. We decide on trying to go through the Pentland Hills just southwest of Edinburgh and to attempt to see the Castlelaw Hill Fort along the way. It took us 3 hours of walking just to reach just south of the hills where the hill fort was located. By this time it was dark out and so we didn't exactly know what we were looking at when we saw the hill fort. We found a small underground tunnel but it wasn't very much and it didn't lead anyway, so I assume that was just the earth house that was also a part of the hill fort. But with it being right next to a military testing zone, and also being a fenced-in field for sheep, I don't think we wanted to wandered too much around to know exactly what the hill fort was. After stopping to eat our dinner of snacks we bought, we continued along a trail to a nearby by reservoir. It was a bit of struggle traversing through a ridiculous field to reach the trail that went right along the reservoir, but eventually we were on a good path. However, after winding around through the hills and across a few small streams, the path began to diverge from the direction we were heading. So we decided to just cross the huge field before us. But this was no simple grassy field. This field was for sheep. And so it was covered with thick low lying bushes and tall grass. We had to just step on the bushes and it was easiest than trying to find a clear spot for our feet. Checking our phones to ensure that we were heading the right direction, we found many streams on the google map of the area before us. Not knowing exactly what this meant for us, we pressed on ward. And then boom. Mush. Apparently these small streams were quite shallow and simply turn areas of the field into marsh land. And it was dark and we were walking at night. Not quite the best idea. We did have walking sticks that we had picked up and this helped a bit with traversing through the absurdly mushy field. We had walked for about an hour through this ridiculous sheep field and it did not appear as though we had made too much progress at all, as our goal for the night was still quite a ways away on our map. We resolved to find the best opening we could in the field, free of mushy marsh and thick bushes. We happened to find a small decent dry area with some sort of billowy green plants, which was the best we would get since there were no exact open areas. We broke out our tent for the night and crashed. Sadly we were in no mood to build a bonfire as we were planning to, nor did we have the necessary space for it in the field. But on the upside, we got some amazing views of the stars in that secluded sheep field that we slept in. We did see at least 3 or 4 shooting stars during our walk.



Wednesday

We awoke a bit early that morning. Outside our tent I happened to find some sheep droppings, which confirmed that the baas I heard earlier that morning were indeed right in my ear. We headed straight for the nearest road, wanting to get out of that terrible field. But of course along the way, we hit some of the worst marsh land. If our shoes happened to dry at all overnight, they were completely soaked now. In some areas, the water reached mid-calf. Eventually, we made it to the nearby farm, where a local in his truck was stopped just staring at us. As we got closer, he asked us where we were heading and where from. When we told him we were heading to Glasgow form Edinburgh, all he could do was just laugh. He offered us a ride to the nearest town, and told us to hop in the back of his pick up. We were quite thankful for that as it would have been quite a walk. He dropped us off at the bus stop to get back to Edinburgh. We sat there for a bit, weighing our options. We didn't make much progress westward towards Glasgow. It still would have been a 13 hour walk, while doable in a day, probably wouldn't have been the best idea with our feet and shoes soaked in dirty water. We hopped on the bus for a 45 minute ride back to Edinburgh. While I was rather disappointed that we wouldn't be able to complete the long journey as planned, we did get to ride on a double decker bus, which we had been wanting to do since we go to the UK. And then from Edinburgh we took a Megabus over to Glasgow. It was only a 70 minute ride, which was not bad at all. We ventured through the main shopping street for a bit. They had an American candy shop which was pretty cool, but seemed a bit too expensive. Also there were a few unique street performers, such as this guy would balanced himself on a tightwire five feet above the ground and played a violin while walking across it; very neat. We then made our way over to the cathedral and spent a good amount of time wandering through the nearby necropolis, which was just a large cemetery that sat on a hill. From here we just headed to our hostel, that was about a half hour walk from the center of the city. After cleaning ourselves up and relaxing for a few hours, we went out to find a pub to get some food. We happened to find the Drygate brewery which was pretty close by. This seemed like a very cool, yet secluded pub, and of course we had to try some of the brewery's own brand. I got the apple ale which was pretty good. I was contemplating on getting some of the smoked mutton (lamb) but I ultimately decided to play it safe with their daily special of pastrami. It was served with two unique sauces: a tomato and sherry chutney and a sauce gribiche (tasted sort of like tartar sauce). They were both very tasty. An excellent last meal for Scotland.

---