Dalmeny and the Winds of Edinburgh

For our weekly walk, Alette and I ventured to the west end of Edinburgh, to South Queensferry, and walked about 11km back to Cramond. The trail is mostly paved though muddy in parts, and took us along the north shore with some nice views of the water. The walk begins at the Forth bridges, and then proceeds to Dalmeny House and the surrounding estate before reaching Cramond.

Unfortunately, Saturday was quite a cold and rainy day. We knew to expect such weather, even before we left Ottawa, so were relatively well prepared in general. What we weren't prepared for was the strength of the wind. Well, our friends Janet and David had told us to expect Fall to last about one day in Edinburgh with the leaves taking about that long to fall. It turns out to be a relatively accurate statement. Except that the wind has stayed around, perhaps to make sure the leaves stay down.

In trying to get a sense for how windy it actually was, and whether it was expected, I took a look at some of the previous weather forecasts. According to one forecast (cached by Google) from last Wednesday, we were to expect winds of about 43 mph on Saturday. For the young 'uns that grew up with metric, that's about 70 km/h. And yes, it felt that windy, especially near the water. Enough to stop us in our tracks several times. Needless to say, we were quite wet and tired by end. So much so, that we didn't even stop for a pint at the Cramond Brig at the end of our walk!