The chocolate tour gave us renewed energy to keep moving for a bit longer, but we knew that if we stopped for too long, we'd never get started again and would miss sunset from Arthur's Seat. There was another little garden (they're everywhere) tucked in a close just down the street from our ApartHotel, so we set off to find it.
It didn't take long, Dunbar's Close Garden was down the Royal Mile, on the way to Holyrood Palace, not even a half a mile from where we were staying.
It was such a pretty little garden tucked just 20 yards or so off the Mile, but it would have been so easy to miss if we weren't specifically looking for it. Since the close was on the way to Holyrood Palace, and the trailhead for Arthur's Seat was near there, we thought we walk down that way a bit so we'd know how much time to give ourselves to get there when we were ready to start our sunset hike. And, also to keep moving. If we had gone back to our room for "a rest" we would have slept clean through to the next day.
The trailhead for Arthur's Seat was pretty easy, so we climbed back up the hill in search of dinner. We found a local cidery pub, The BrewDog. They, at least, acknowledged us unlike the pub the night before, and we slid into a booth. We both saw the QR code at the end of the table and sighed heavily, thinking we were going to have a similar experience. Just as Jay scanned the QR code, though, an actual waiter showed up! A human being, bearing waters, and most importantly, was human. We didn't have to order and pay via that damn QR code. Our faith in the Edinburgh pub culture was tentatively restored.
On the menu, they offered an adult "Hoppy" meal. I couldn't pass it up.
It came with a burger, chips (fries), a beverage, and a prize. The prize was a BrewDog pin that I stuffed somewhere in a coat pocket and haven't seen since.
The food hit the spot after being on the move all day, and only having chocolate for lunch. The cider went down pretty smoothly as well. I ordered it thinking it would make the upcoming hike a little less daunting. It did, until we actually started the hike. lol.
We're both fairly fit people, and we live at altitude, so I truly thought that it would be no big deal to hit both a sunrise and a sunset hike in the same day at sea level. Boy, was I wrong.
I was tired, my feet were sore, and I was cold. It had been raining off and on all day, and while I anticipated it, the cold seeped into my bones and I spent the day chilled. Nonetheless, we only had this one evening to do the sunset hike, so off we went.
Once we got off the pavement and onto the trail, we both found a bit more energy as we headed up. There are multiple ways up to the summit, and we saw some people doing a bit of a scramble. We decided that doing a scramble would make it feel more like a hike and less like a walk, so we followed the trail that went to the scramble.
It was short, hardly a scramble, but it felt more like hiking, and buoyed both our moods. I'm glad we took the trail branch that headed toward the rocks, because there was a really cool chapel ruins that we got to explore.
Soon enough, we were back on the trail, headed for the summit. We stopped about halfway up. Our excuse was to take a picture, but the real reason was that we were completely gassed and needed a moment to get our shit in a pile.
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| The scenery was gorgeous, though. Despite being exhausted, we could appreciate the beauty. |
On any normal day at home, this little jaunt up the hill wouldn't have even caused us to sweat, but this hill walk, as they call hiking in Scotland, made us dig deep. We did it. We summitted, and it wasn't yet time for sunset.
The views were so very different. Looking back toward the city, you could see all of the architecture and feel the history. Turning around to look in the opposite direction, you have the water. It's really hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that Edinburgh is essentially a coastal city.
When we got to the summit, I found a rock to sit down on and it was the most perfect summit rock I've ever put my butt on. It was formed just right, and the rock behind was the perfect backrest. It was like sitting in a La-Z-Boy.
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| This is the face of a very, very happy GunDiva. |
Unfortunately, even though we made it before sunset, the clouds were thick and we realized we weren't going to get to see sunset and we headed back down. Returning from the summit of any hike is always easier than going up, so the trip down was great. What wasn't so great was getting to the bottom of the hike and realizing that we had to walk UP the Royal Mile to our room. That little bit was purely trudging along.
We ended the day with more than 35,000 steps (13.6 miles - we completed a half marathon!), which turned out to be the most steps per day of the entire trip. When Jay said that we'd use our time in Edinburgh to leg up for our hikes in the Highlands, he wasn't kidding!
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