Wednesday Walk - along the river bank watching the planes land

Its wednesday walk time again ! Last night I went for a lovely walk just before sunset on the edge of Edinburgh along a path by the river Almond.

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It really was a nice walk. A number of plants are back in bloom with the warmer weather. It was also really quiet - I only saw two other people on the whole walk.

The thing I noticed along the whole walk was that there was wild garlic growing literally everywhere. The pic above was taken just by the car park, and you can see it blanketing the whole forest floor. Although it was flowering it wasnt smelling so strongly yet. You can normally smell it quite clearly when its as dense as this.

The first 5 mins took me up to the grotto bridge, which is for foot traffic only. Its not a great picture as it was the only angle I could get as the river bank is quite steep at that point.

From the bridge onwards the path reduces in size to just a track. As can be seen the wild garlic was still covering the forest floor completely on both sides.

I soon came across a blockage in the path as this massive tree had fallen over. You cant quite tell the scale from the pic, but the base of the tree was around 6 feet across. This had clearly fallen quite recently and hadnt been cleared at all by anyone yet.

I did spot some other older dead trees as well, like the broken one above. It is a reminder that you do have to watch where you are going on forest walks, especially if the trees are not so actively managed and there is a risk of them coming down, especially if its windy.

I wanted a decent walk so kept on going along the path. I came across the interesting tree above further up. The bark was really rugged with these very deep grooves, which I havent really seen before. I'm assuming its the species of tree, although I wasnt sure what it was.

I went along the path for around 30 mins to where the river widens out and slows down. I took in the views there for a while before turning around to make my way back, just as the sun started to go down.

I took an easier path back through the farmers fields, and was getting some nice sunset views.

The flight path into Edinburgh Airport last night was taking the planes right overhead so I was trying my best to get a few good shots of the planes coming into land.

So I turned into a plane spotter for the next 5 mins trying the catch a good pic - although I only had my phone so they werent that great.

I was continuing to enjoy the sunset on the way back to the car park when I also started seeing some bats coming out. They were quite small and really fast, so I had no chance of getting a pic of one, but I loved seeing them. Its a while since I've seen any.

I enjoyed the walk so much that I'm even considering going back to the same spot this evening ! That wraps up my wednesday walk post for this week !

All the best from Scotland - cheers @hoosie

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