0 Getting ready

I had heard of the seven hills of Edinburgh, but when I actually attempted to list them, I always counted eight! A quick internet search revealed that Wester Craiglockhart Hill doesn’t count. Maybe because seven sounds better than eight.

So Mr W and I, once agreed on what the seven were and the order in which we would climb them, set off. To reduce the boring bits, we planned to use rental bikes in-between hills.

Unfortunately, there was only one bike available where we live, so we had to walk to hill #1.

1 Calton Hill

Not to worry - the walk to Calton Hill is fairly short and interesting, with lots of new shops and cafes having opened on Easter Road.

2 Arthur’s Seat

Down on the other side of Calton Hill, we took bikes and coasted down most of the hill, past Holyrood palace and parliament to Our Dynamic Earth, where we left the bikes and set off to the biggest climb of the day.

Interlude

After Arthur’s Seat, to warm up, dry out, and lift our (damp-ened) spirits after having been rained on and exposed to a cold wind, we stopped at the Wee Cafe for provisions and to renew our commitment to the challenge.

3 Blackford Hill

Luckily, we found bikes near the cafe and saved us a long walk to the next few hills.

4 Braid Hill

Braid Hill sits right behind Blackford Hill, and these two caused no problems.

5 Easter Craiglockhart Hill

Walking to Craiglockhart, a few children were trying to rescue a football from a burn and I gave it a 50% chance that one of them would fall in, but none did, and they did catch the ball.

Then we got hailed on, but our ponchos saved the day, and made it quite a fun experience.

6 Corstorphine Hill

To get to Corstorphine, we really counted on getting bikes because this was to be a bit of a trudge. But all bikes were gone and we had to walk.

We stopped at my old flat, in the hope of a cup of tea and use of the toilet, but my flatmate wasn’t in. I almost didn’t recognise the house, because it had been newly painted and looked very smart. Quite an achievement, with four parties living in the house and having to agree on colour, costs, time scales, and so on. We did have a look at her garden which was completely transformed during lockdown to a very tidy lovely space.

7 Castle Rock

Coming down from the second to last hill, there were no bikes, so we had to walk a mile or so towards the city centre to get some. We then were almost taken off the bikes by a gammon driver who gave us only centimetres of space, causing some exchange of words.

The final climb up Castle Rock from Castle Terrace was a joy - very short, and the castle esplanade very quiet.

The end

It would have been nice to celebrate with a pint or so, but after a day of getting rained and hailed on, we didn’t fancy sitting out in the cold, and alcohol is currently not being served inside pubs due to pandemic restrictions.

So we got bikes and cycled home instead and had a nice cup of tea and home-made fish pie.