Water of Leith - Murrayfield to the sea

[nigheandonn]

Sunday 28th July

I walked part of the Water of Leith walkway more as less incidentally as part of the John Muir Way locally, which gave me a notion to keep going. From the JMW you leave the river beside Murrayfield stadium to head up to Corstorphine Hill instead, so that was where I headed back to - I hadn't brought the map, as you can't really lose a river, and got to Balgreen Road and couldn't quite work out where I'd lost the JMW, as I was sure I'd come out to the main road there the last time, but it turns out that it takes an odd route which goes backwards a bit.

The river is visible from the bridge by the stadium as you pass over it, but oddly hidden from the path itself - instead the depression seems to be filled with rough greenery.

Vanishing river

Round the corner the path passes Murrayfield ice rink, looking lonely, and the stadium, and the river stayed hidden behind the shrubs growing along the fence. Beyond the stadium is a stretch of park, with plenty of people out, including some flying a dragon kite, and a pair practicing hockey, which was a new lockdown sport sighting for me.

Murrayfield park

At the end of the park a bridge over the river is in view, but the path has to turn from it, along a Roseburn street, before coming back to the main road and coming out to the main road by the pair of bridges at the Murrayfield Avenue junction. The path doesn't actually cross either bridge, but they're both quite attractive, especially the older one which is now a footbridge.

Twin bridge

Instead the path dives off up a street of unusual houses, but soon leaves it again to drop down by steps to the river bank,and soon pass below a viaduct - I couldn't imagine what it carried, but it seems to be a dismantled railway line, now a cycle path.

Unexpected viaduct

A heron was posing impressively in the river, looking oddly hairy.

Hairy heron

I thought that I had never walked this stretch before, but as I headed along it I realised that I had once, with a crowd going from the Botanics to Murrayfield ice rink. It was all very green, and at a corner the river spread out to a kind of pool with a statue standing in it, apparently an AIDS memorial.

Memorial

Round the corner houses started to come into view on the banks again, and one new looking building had some very nice old ruins in its garden.

Old and new

The path suddenly got tired of that side of the river, and darted across a blue bridge to a walkway which led along to another viaduct, this time carrying a road.

Another viaduct

A sign here pointed towards the Dean Gallery, and distracted me off on a detour - quite a lot of years ago now I used to take a shortcut through the grounds on my way to work, and I wanted to see if the thing I walked past telling me that a sheep was an animal of the golden age was still there!

Mythical creatures

Not far on from where I rejoined the riverside path it met a locked gate, so that I had to cross a bridge again - I wasn't sure if this was what was meant to happen, but on the other side I was soon in a muddle of tall buildings and not very informative 'diversion to Stockbridge' signs. Once I figured out where the signs were supposed to be pointing, another road brought me down past some of the more... inventive buildings in the area to where a bridge was blocked off, this time with a diversion map on it.

Odd houses

This, it turned out, was actually the other end of the diversion, and the reason for it, as the bridge was in need of repair, so I was free of signs and could wander along the road through the Dean Village to the road bridge. It's an odd and eclectic mix of old and new here, but somehow it works.

Dean village

I really meant to leave the river here, and cut up to the West End, but having only just reached it again I forgot that, and headed on towards the Dean Bridge. In the days when I worked nearby I would sometimes come down here at lunchtime, and the difference between the bridge seen from below towering overhead, and the flat road that is the bridge seen from above, impressed me then and does now.

Dean Bridge

The only problem with going on past the bridge is that there's not another chance to leave the river for a while - it's a nice stretch, deep in the steep-sided valley. The path passes two wells, first the small plain Georgian building of St George's Well, and then the earlier and more famous St Bernard's Well, with its circular pumphouse and its statue.

St Bernard's Well

I left the river at the next bridge, although by that point I really should have gone on to Raeburn Place, and failed utterly to find an efficient way back towards the west, ending up in Howe Street.

Sunday 5th July

Having left the river at a slightly odd place, I had a bit of an adventure trying to make my way back to it, turning down Magdala Crescent and trying to skirt above the river until I finally reached India Place again - navigation made more interesting by a (fairly warm) downpour all the time I was trying to find my way round the various loops of garden. However, I got there, coming back down to the riverside path at from the complicated bridge where I had left it.

Rejoining the river

Almost as soon as I was under the bridge I was on a street leading up to Raeburn Place, where I had to cross both the road and the river, going down the steps beside Pizza Express to join the path along the opposite bank. I've definitely walked this section before, down towards the Botanics - it's quite reminiscent of the canal, with the river tightly controlled between buildings on one side and the path and wall on the other.

Riverside path

It doesn't stay a path for very long, though - from the sign at the other end the walkway is thrown up onto Arboretum Avenue.

The other end

The houses on the other side of the river are pretty, but apart from that it's just road and the wall of somebody's cricket pitch.

Colonies

Round the corner is the Rocheid path, named for the family who once owned the land, and then the path crosses a footbridge and runs on between big office buildings on both sides to not quite pass under a road bridge - an attractive glimpse beyond of greenery tumbling over walls towards the water.

No way on

Instead the path heads up steps to Inverleith Row, where the next stretch seemed to have vanished behind scaffolding, but turned out to be down a street slightly further along. Further down the road can be closed off with floodgates - swans on one side, and a heron on the other.

Floodgate heron

Round the next corner the path is still following the road, but a raised walkway runs along on the river side. I was finally in genuinely new places - as far as I knew I'd never really been in this area, never mind along the river here.

Raised walkway

Once again the path wanders out onto a road bridge, and then into a park, where a swan was swimming under a footbridge.

Swan under the bridge

The park had benches and therefore made a good place to stop for lunch, but I went wrong leaving it, as a clear path led over another footpath, while I should have been on the not very clear path which stayed on the same side of the river - when I came out on Broughton Road I thought I should just be able to walk along it a bit and pick up the river, but it turned out that the river had shot off round a bend and didn't reach the road at all, so I had to retrace my steps.

Beyond the bend I came to a place oddly named Stedfastgate, with an old carved wellhead - apparently named for the 100th anniversary of the Boys' Brigade in 1983.

Stedfastgate

From here, however, the riverside path was closed and the route diverted, first through a park and then through some not very well marked streets, and even when I finally came back to the river signs pointed me away from it - when I finally found the diversion map where the routes joined again it seemed like I'd gone much further round than I really needed to, but I'd only gone where I was told.

Some kind of magic has happened to the river here to turn it from the thing about as wide as the canal at Stockbridge to the great river which heads down to the sea - nothing has obviously joined it along the way.

Grown river

This really was nearly the end - one more bend, and I could see the stone bridge at Sandport Place, with the water almost touching the tops of the arches.

Sandport Place bridge

I like the Shore, and had a prowl around - old buildings and fairly new boats.

Boats at the Shore

My way home was a route that I had never known existed before, the path on the old railway line which runs from Leith up to Craigleith - another interesting discovery.