catspaw

Hmm, so, where was I? Oh yes, the third day of yomping around the Central Belt tourist trail *g*.

The weather held up for Thursday as well. Man, I *love* this country when the weather's good :-D Feather and I went off on a boat trip - on the 'Maid of the Forth'. ( Those of you familiar with

nicci_mac's journal might remember her AGM photos taken aboard.) The 'Maid' is a wee pleasure cruiser type boatie thing that takes you down the river to one of the islands, Inchcolm, where there's a ruined medieval abbey (and a lot of nesting seabirds), and you get the chance to spot wildlife on the way. Beautiful spot if you luck out with the weather, which we did, again! It started out cloudy, but cleared away lovely.

You get a great view of the Bridge from the river:

It's undergoing repairs (again - actually, more or less constantly, thanks to years of neglect by BR) but it's still a bonny sight :-)

After about a three-quarters of an hour saunter down the river, you hit the island (well not literally 'hit', one hopes *g*), with great views of Fife when you land

and it's wonderful. No noise at all except seabirds, and the noise that you make yourself. We lucked out there too - there was a school party just leaving as we arrived and there were only about a dozen of us arriving, so we had the place pretty much to ourselves. The abbey is beautiful

especially in the good weather. I don't know that I'd have fancied it that much in the winter though, with the wind screaming up the Forth from the North Sea. Although they do reckon that, being roughly in the middle of the river, it's really quite dry most of the time, and often clear when the mainland on both sides is teeming. Hmmm. I'd believe it when I saw it *g*. The buildings are mostly ruined, but the ones with roofs you can see in the picture have at times been an artillery store and a private house, and I think I'm right in saying the Wardens live there now. The octagonal building in the pic is the Chapter House, which has benches for the Brothers running around the walls and a quite spectacular stone bench for the Abbot, Prior and Sub-prior:

After a good poke around, we attempted to climb to the top of the island - there's a WWII bunker at the top, with a tunnel through from one side to the other. The tunnel was very dark though, and the hillside was smothered with these

who were definitely not thrilled at us stravaiging around near their chicks. After a couple of threat displays, we gave up *g*.

I did get a nice photo of the abbey from up the hill though - this one's the postcard view ;-)

Another lovely saunter back down the river to South Queensferry, and we headed off for Cramond, just outside Edinburgh, where there's a Roman fort and settlement. Not much left of it now, but the village is pretty. Oh, and some excitement! There's an island just off the mainland, maybe about a quarter of a mile, which you can walk to on a causeway at low tide. I'd just been explaining to Feather the day before that we probably wouldn't be able to get there because of the tides, and that every year there's at least one coastguard rescue when some numpty doesn't read the tide tables and gets stuck. On the way there, I heard sirens coming up fast behind me, and the coastguard belted by at full tilt. We parked up and wandered down the side of the river to the sea - and got back just in time to see the coastguard mooring and decanting the Numpty of the Day. A guy had been walking his dog there and must have got stranded, so he'd called the coastguard out. So we joined the crowd of rubberneckers (who were making the guy cringe *g*) and saw him landed safely. How exciting!

So, that was Thursday. Next up: jaunt to

historyterry's house :-)

ps The icon I'm using is a picture of the flag on the back of the 'Maid of the Forth' :-).