The Easter and Wester Craiglockhart Hills
13 September 2005
By david Brown
Six people gathered at the Napier Craighouse site on a blustery evening and set off via the Craighouse nature trail down through the broadleaf forest to the hidden boating lake behind the Craiglockhart Tennis Centre.
After a brief detour to demonstrate the potential for evening cocktails, the group continued up towards Wester Craiglockhart Hill, stopping briefly to admire the “egg” on Napier’s Craiglockhart site.
Now a steep haul up the hil, led us onto the ridge from where great views of the Pentlands to the South, the bridges to the west and the City and Fife to the North rewarded us briefly, before we were driven down to explore the old hospitals and their redevelopment as “posh” housing.
There were some complaints when a fence had to be negotiated and we were accosted by a local asking if we were lost. But finding the escape route we escaped the housing development and skirted the golf course to re-enter the Napier campus and gain the top of Easter Craiglockhart.
Here the party briefly posed to prove the trip had happened, but was swiftly driven down the hill to escape the wind.
On arriving back at the start, our Chair was heard to admit, that although for a period a resident in this quarter of the City, he had never used this particular set of paths before. So despite the detours and fences, this was deemed a good walk for a short evening, and led to musing about the possibilities of finding a circular walk of Corstorphine Hill as winter gives way to spring.
Losing Peter, we gained Jan for supper at the Gurkha in Morningside,
but not before her invisibility had caused considerable concern for our
hosts, only relieved when an order for Channa Marsala was placed, and
seats and mains were in balance.
The end