C is for companionship, chums and cor blimey, this is a lovely walk!!!
This is a wee while in the writing for various reasons, both personal on my part and for my friend. We are all moving on though and have very good and happy memories of this day that was a last day for us on a couple of levels. So, there will be no sadness here, just gladness and happiness that we made some really good memories that will last for always.
So, C is also for 'come on, let's carry on shall we?'
My companions for this lovely walk through Almondell were Hogy the pooch, and Walter, Susan and Sid, my three intrepid friends! We set off for adventure and excitement, rather like the Famous Five but ever so slightly older and much creakier in the joints!!! Unfortunately I am actually alluding to my own joints as they are very creaky nowadays... no sneaking up any stairs for me, my knees will give me away every time! In fact it's probably only a matter of time before my knees give way altogether, but hey ho, we'll carry on until they do!
So, we set off along the banks of the River Almond in Livingston, not too far from Walter's house and a place he knows very well. It was my first visit here, as it was for Hogy, so we were excited from the start. There were rumours of kingfishers in the area, which is terribly exciting to me... I don't get out much, lol. The banks of the river were muddy and wet and terribly exciting to Hogy... chances of seeing a kingfisher with him charging about? Yep, zero! Oh well. There was still plenty more to see along the way!
We walked along towards the viaduct, which was impressive enough as it soared above the meadows and the trees that line the river banks,
but then we came across this lovely old wooden covered bridge that sits beneath it by the canal feeder.
Two stunning bridges in one place... certainly interesting enough but oh, there was more to come! There's lots of things that the Scots are famous for, and one of them has to be building bridges. My word, they've got some crackers up there!! Everyone knows of the Forth Rail Bridge, and many know the story of the Tay Rail Bridge, but not so many know about the bonny bridges of Almondell... they're not known at all as the bonny bridges of Almondell as it happens, but I think they're very bonny so bonny bridges they shall now be!
As you walk along the path by the viaduct, you follow along a small stream that is chock full of aquatic plants and reeds and streamside flowers. It's absolutely beautiful. Further along it widens and becomes a much more obviously man-made channel and this is actually a canal feeder for the nearby Union Canal, which runs between the fantastic Falkirk Wheel and into the centre of Edinburgh.
The path winds through the woods and back along by the river as the canal feeder crosses over it in a covered pedestrian metal aquaduct. Interesting enough and certainly quite odd... I don't think I've ever walked across the top of a canal before as it crosses a river below. I've walked alongside the Llangollen Canal on the aquaduct at Trevor where it crosses the River Dee, but never directly over the top as you do here. The canal feeder runs in a channel beneath the metal walkway, which makes it a rather interesting and different style of aquaduct.
If you walk further into Almondell there is yet another one, Lin's Mill aquaduct, which has a rather interesting but very sad story attached to it. Apparently, the aquaduct was built by William Lin, who rather than becoming famous for building the bridge, was rather more famous for being the last person to die of the plague in Scotland. As if that's not bad enough, nobody would help to bury him, so his poor wife had to bundle his body into a sack and drag him into the woods to bury him by herself!!! We actually didn't get as far as the aquaduct, but I shall be back and will pay a visit to pay my respects to the poor unfortunate Lin's.
We stayed to the left of the metal aquaduct and made our way through the woods towards the visitor centre, tea, teacakes and the other necessaries! There are a few stepped paths that lead up into the woods in an inviting way,
so Susan and I went to explore... along with Hogy of course! We popped out by a barley field,
so we popped back down to re-join the boys and hot-foot it along to the tea shop! There's a very interesting monument just outside the visitor centre that had us a bit puzzled for a while.
We looked at the inscriptions and carvings and worked out that it was something mathematical and in some way geographical, but couldn't really make head nor tail of it until Susan had the idea of asking someone and brought back a leaflet. The monument is actually an Astronomical Pillar commissioned by the 11th Earl of Buchan in 1777. A leading amateur astronomer and founder of the Society of Antiquaries Scotland, the Earl created a scale model of the solar system in 1776. Not only predicting a transit of Venus in 2225, his calculations have proven to be very accurate, especially given the technology of the time! He carved the pillar in 1777 to record his calculations... though despite his obvious genius, he wasn't quite so hot on spelling and got 'Leith' wrong!
He maybe knew the 'I before E' bit, but wasn't aware of the rest (except after C or when it rhymes with D). Despite the spelling mistake, and we'll certainly forgive him for that, the Pillar is astounding. The inscription on the front translates from Latin into
'Pay homage to the heavenly sent land' which is rather apt and also extremely indicative of the Earl's feelings and spirit. Marvellous... in the truest sense of the word!
Having refreshed ourselves with tea and teacakes and water for the dog, we headed back along the river to the Naysmith Bridge. We set out via a peek at the modern and, it has to be said, beautiful suspension bridge, and then back towards the older stone bridge in the park by the meadows.
That actually turned into a bit of an adventure in itself, as Hogy took a fancy to a football that a few lads were kicking about! Oops!! Having retrieved it for them, I had to distract him and entertain him with a run along the path away from the lads. It never fails to amuse him, and it never failed to half kill me as my lungs feel about ready to explode from my mouth!! I'm really not built for speed! The others caught us up and I was rather grateful for Walter's offer of a lend of his lens as I looked for any excuse for a rest to get some breath back!
So, attaching Walter's 10-24mm lens onto my camera, I dropped down to the riverside to get some wide-angle views up to the bridge. Unfortunately there had been a recent diesel spill here, but it wasn't too bad and the view was still good.
The Naysmith Bridge was designed by the landscape painter Alexander Naysmith in 1800. The bridge has been restored after collapsing in recent years, and the restoration work is quite evident in the new fresh stonework, although it has been carried out extremely well and with great care to restore the glory and beauty of this wonderful old bridge. The meadows down beside the bridge are equally glorious, speckled with pyramidal orchids and other wildflower species right down to the river bank.
Across to the other side of the meadow is a wooded hill, bound by the same canal feeder that we'd followed before. Hogy spied a rabbit up in the woods and hot-pawed it across the canal... no mean feat as it is quite deep there and very steep-sided. Hogy has rather bad hips, so it was with some trepidation that I ran over to it, fully expecting to see him struggling in the water!
No sign of the pooch though, the lure of the rabbit was clearly stronger than the gravitational pull of the canal sides and he was up in the woods chasing fluffy tails!! Unfortunately gravity had taken it's toll on the frisbee that had been dangling from his chops when he'd spotted the bunny.
Now lying at the bottom of the canal feeder, I considered it to be all but lost. Sid, however, is a true intrepid and was determined to recover the pink rubber disc at all costs. I really did think it was going to be at the cost of a headlong bath in the canal, but Sid managed to flick it up with a stick and across to the nearside bank where I could lay down (in the nettles!!!) and pick it up from the water. It was a fairly precarious operation as I had nothing to hold onto and I was outstretched in a particularly wobbly position, but we made it... teamwork triumphed and Hogy got his frisbee back thanks to Sid! Well done indeed!!!
Following the path back across the metal aquaduct, we peered over the side to see Mrs Mallard encouraging her brood into the perilous looking waters of the river below.
Thankful that we were still drier than the ducks, we headed back the way we came and on to Walter's for a smashing meal and a giggle with Walter's lovely Mum. En route, we heard the distinctive metallic call of a kingfisher that was so tantalisingly close, but could we see it? Could we 'eck as like!! Did we care? Not really! We'd had a lovely day out as it was!
A day I shall never, ever forget. Thank you Walter, Susan and Sid, and of course to Walter's mum. A special day that was eventually made all the more precious. Thank you.
Rebecca, XX.
www.rtphotographics.co.ukrebecca@rtphotographics.co.uk
