Glencorse View Walk

It was a glorious day (although after the first frosty night!) and it seemed just the right moment to do a walk that I found last week in the Scotland on Sunday newspaper. It was relatively easy with only a moderate amount of climbing involved and close by in the Pentland Hills Regional Park. This time I also had the good sense to wear the appropriate foot wear! It seems amazing that we have lived here going on for 20 years and have never done this walk before as it is in fact clearly signposted from the car park at the Flotterstone Inn. We hardly needed the written description.

There were lots of people about but there are many different walks in the Hills so after a little while we lost most of the crowds and had the path and the hills to ourselves. Needless to say there were many photo opportunities and you're getting the edited highlights here.

We had made an early start setting off on the walk immediately after lunch at 1pm and that meant we also had the best blue skies of the afternoon as per the weather forecast. Towards the end the skies were darkening and clouding over so I was pleased I managed to get that gorgeous blue into most of the pictures.

 I loved to see the white clouds just popping up over the top of the hills.

Glencorse Reservoir is a place for fishing and there were many delightful little boats moored by the edge of the water.

The reservoir itself was build in the early part of the 19th Century and is no longer a main source of water supply for Edinburgh now, but more a sort of top-up resource when Talla and Megget Reservoirs (which we visited with Lenna 3 weeks ago) are running low. Underneath the water lie the ruins of the 13th Century St. Catherine's Chapel. Despite the fact that the water is low there was no sign of that to be seen.

The view in the other direction during the walk is equally stunning. This is looking in the direction of Edinburgh.

And looking close at the surrounding burns also paid off in the shape of beautiful water reflections. All in all, this is worth repeating. There are a lot more walks in the Pentland Hills and hopefully we will also have more splendid days like this before winter proper starts.