Category: Walking without a donkey – travels in Edinburgh

2018, updated 2021

Granton Harbour (built in the 1830s and historical site of the first electric car factory) to South Queensferry – an easy and utterly heavenly walk which takes you along the shore, through woodland and between agricultural pastures.

This blog contains directions for the walk, together with a collection of observations.

Today was everything that is quintessentially reminiscent of my childhood in British springtime: bluebell woods and wild flowers by the path side.

Granton

I left at 11.20 and arrived at 4.20, but as my friend Ann said when she told me about this walk on Friday, it depends how many times you stop! I think I probably had half an hour at the cafe and half on the beach so I would allow 4 hours.

It was shorts and t-shirt weather.

Thanks to Krista for this quote onbeing.org

“The natural world is where we evolved.
It’s where our minds evolved.
It’s where we became who we truly are,
and it’s where we are most at home.”
– Michael McCarthy –

It starts among wasteland and industrial plots – either side of West Harbour Road.

Once away from the traffic, I saw a circle of gulls mimicking a mothers group, just out at sea; a pair of multi-coloured sparrow-small birds (red, black, brown and white) which played by the water line; and eider ducks swam by – she brown and he black and white.

Silverknowes

The little girl who held her mother’s hand was leaping for joy over the waves

The tarmac way stretching from Granton through Silverknowes (1 mile) to Cramond is perfect for wheels of all sorts – scooters, roller skates and blades, prams, wheelchairs and bikes. Dad said, ‘look no hands’, and wobbled dangerously. As he passed me he muttered, ‘harder on this bike’!

It can be crowded at weekends at this stage, but at other times so very peaceful. As I passed, I caught the fragrance of elderflower and meadowsweet. The Edinburgh airport flight path is parallel to this trek so planes roared periodically overhead.

Past Gypsy Brae, I spied Almond House Lodge. At the corner you can cross to Cramond Island at low tide but beware! People often get stranded.

Cramond

On the left are public toilets and then a steep slope up to the village. By now you will have passed two ice-cream vans. There are two cafes: the Cramond Gallery Bistro near where the Roman statue of a lionness was dredged up in 1977, and further on past the marina, the Cramond Falls cafe. There I stopped for a delicious green tea and what was not really a scone, but nice cherry cake just out of the oven. I sat in the ‘walled garden’ listening to a woman read out a most distressing text from her son.

A duckling was nudged by its mother; a tan-headed crested grebe ducked and reappeared, its tuft upright though wet. Thin, shiny-green beech leaves looked almost plasticky, matching the weed drifting in the river. The sound of bubbling water and the ‘creep creep’ of birds surrounded me.

One of a pair of women in serious sun hats were the first to say ‘good morning’, an hour and a half into my walk. She was American. ‘Oh’, she said as I went past, ‘I’ve been saying good morning all this time and it’s the afternoon!’ and laughed. Later there were many friendly families of cyclists cheerfully greeting me.

The path is generally very easy to follow, but do keep taking the right hand fork if you have a choice.

Take a right at Dowies Mill Lane where there is a playpark and Shetland ponies. I realised I was already at the field I was told about and, yes, there was a just-newborn foal in a woman’s arms. Last week’s littl’un was being trotted round the field by its mother. The two other adult horses were curious, and crowded round the shed door to view the new arrival.

Then take a right again at Cramond Brig (bridge). (You could go left for the cycle path back to Edinburgh, or straight on for the continuation of the Almond Walkway).

After Bridge Cottage (above), go up the lane by the Cramond Brig Inn and keep right until there are signs to South Queensferry. The road travels through the Dalmeny Estate by a bank of comfrey, white dead nettle, dandelions, pink campion and buttercups. Flies looped the loop after each other in front of my nose. A cuckoo called; a bee buzzed by my ear; white cherry-blossom petals wafted.

Keep straight on.

Look to the right to see Granton’s very own disused gas building (once the site of Hidden Door Festival 2021 and now part of the extensive redevelopment of the area’s housing).

When you get close to the sea take the left fork signed John Muir Way (JM Way).

A group of women came up behind me with their Glasgow accents. In fact, all day I heard almost as many foreign languages as I hear when walking in mainland Europe.

Turn left again at the beach. Here one can take a tiny right hand détour to lie on warm sand and sit on the promontory of Eagle Rock with its chocolate seams, in a beige cove. I looked back to my right at Cramond Harbour with a beautiful view of the island.

I meditated on the sound of the waves and tried, unsuccessfully, to ignore the fly crawling up my arm. I smelled the beautiful briney sea (sing-along-a Bedknobs and Broomsticks fans).

Oyster catchers, and curlews with long sabre-curved beaks perched on the starboard side.

At the cottages, stay right on the JM Way.

There was a coconut scent of warm gorse here. The ash trees had young leaves, no black nibs to decorate them as it was April. I stopped and hung over the dinky wooden bridge and heard a bumble bee and the trickling brook.

The path continued beside the golf links, opposite the Fife Coastal Path.

Two geese flew over and honked. It was definitely spring – everything and everyone was in pairs. I will be honest, I wanted the whole world to be in love.

Dalmeny Estate

A great arc of precisely patterned oyster catchers alighted in front of the couple who sat quietly side-by-side at the shoreline. Later I spotted the birds lined up neatly, a flock on a rock, like black and white cake-icing.

First I walked past the impressive Dalmeny House and very shortly afterwards, the grey stone Barnbougle Castle owned by the Earl of Rosebery and extremely private. This is where I saw my first magenta rhododendron buds. I was on cycle route 76 as well as the JM Way.

I passed a mum taking a snap of dad up a tree, son in his bike helmet looking up into the branches nervously. As I waded through springy undergrowth to get a shot, I disturbed spider filaments which clung to me and tickled as I got back to the path. There were cerise stalks and seed cases of the sycamore and a pollen-yellow clutch of unfurled ferns.

To my mind it was a shame about the yapping dogs on the beach and the droning of the water motorbikes; but a kid hurling stones, boys paddling and little girls rock pooling all seemed idyllic.

I heard a lad saying, ‘Don’t you hate it when you get a speck of sand between your toes and then there’s a blister?’ Luckily I had none 🙂

Then a lady shrilly asking, ‘Do you trust me?’ She laughed, afterwards, with a wicked stepmother sort of cackle.

A black lab rushed up to me with a ruby-coloured, lolling tongue implying, ‘you might want to lie down but I want you to throw the stick’.

I passed out of the Dalmeny Estate through the Longcraig Gate at South Queensferry. If you do not want to walk the whole way, you can park at the foot of the rail bridge and walk part of the way in the other direction. You could also take the train from Edinburgh to Dalmeny Town and cycle (£4.70 return with Scotrail).

Under the famous rail bridge I found myself on New Halls Road where perhaps 50 bikers with their beards and bald heads revving their engines. I had a refreshing half of Holyrood pale ale in The Hawes Inn.

There are many steep steps to the station and tiny little signs. When you find yourself in the middle of a housing estate, go straight on (not right) and it is on the left. (I am not quite sure why I got a return except that my head is always ‘mince’ after a walk. The guard said if he had sold it to me on the train he could have refunded it!).

You may like these blogs:

The Edinburgh Epicure on Peatdraught Bay and Orocco Pier; and Spotted by Locals which also has a blog by Mark Gorman about the Forth Rail Bridge and Peatdraught Bay. Also the WECWC South Queensferry to Cramond.

I hope you enjoy the walk. Please do leave comments about what you found and any changes in the comments below.