Sunday 17 April 2011

Walk in Garvald

Today the sun was shing so the family decided to check out a walk we had been told about a while ago. Off we trooped to the beautiful little village of Garvald about 4 miles past Gifford. East Lothian seems to be peppered with lovely little places like this and the drive to get there was full of impressive views of the surrounding area.

Garvald Kirk
The walk begins beside Garvald church and follows the line of a stream, we couldn't have picked a better day for it and the countryside was literally bursting into life after a cold winter.





The path then led uphill into the woods and eventually wound down to a sturdy footbridge over the stream (one of three we found).


 From there we followed the lower path until we again went uphill and lo and behold! a castle!




This is where we decided to dive back into the woods and try another path. At this point my good wife Kate jumped about 3 feet into the air and the Boys' eyes nearly popped out as crossing the path right at Kate's feet was a decent sized Adder!! In fact i have never seen an adder since I was a boy so I was mighty impressed as it slithered of into the undergrowth and had to google it when i got home to make sure it was an Adder but the diamond pattern down it's back told me i was correct. The boys thought this was cool and seeing as Sandy had his 'gun' with him , I had a five year old's assurance that he would have 'blasted' it into a thousand million pieces if it had attacked! and off he toddled leading the way humming the 'Raider's of the Lost Ark' theme tune to accompany his own private adventure!

Just after the Adder encounter

Im not scared of snakes!

Have gun to blast monster snakes to pieces!!


We then followed a path which led across the top of the valley and snaked down to the first bridge we crossed where the boys tried a bit of mountaineering while I strolled up the gentle path beside to meet them at the top.


Picking flowers

It's a long way to the top!

Victorious!!

Down the other side - full speed

More creepy crawlies sighted



From there we then made our way back to the car which was parked outside the Garvald Inn where we noticed that a scooter gang had parked up and must have been inside taking refreshments.





At that point it was decided that ice creams were essential after the walk and were duly purchased at Gifford's Co-op along with some sausages which were then rushed home to be incinerated on the barbeque, smothered in tomato ketchup and washed down with copious amounts of Coca-Cola, the boys declared this a most "Gran' day oot!"

1 comment:

  1. Fabulous little blog, all very adventurous and great fun by the sounds of things.

    ReplyDelete