A day on the Firth of Forth

We had a lovely day yesterday. We went out on a boat!

There are three hour trips from a little quay at Queensferry under the Forth railway bridge to Inchcolm Island in the Firth of Forth. Half an hour or so there, couple of hours exploring then half an hour back. We thoroughly collected the two Forth bridges. We’ll be going over the road bridge on our way to Aberdeen and I think you’ll agree that a bridge is properly collected if you go underneath it on a boat!

It was a lovely trip to the island. Then we spent a merry time exploring the abbey. We might have gone to the top of the tower except that a lady told us the tiny staircase was much too narrow for her to fit on, and she was half the size of me. I reckon we’d have got up, but there were plenty of other things to look at so we didn’t bother.

We meandered up a mown path through loads and loads of different kinds of seagulls, then made our way back to a courtyard in the abbey, where we had a magnificent, Marks and Sparks picnic with wine and sandwiches and tiny pork pies and salad. We had toooooo much food for there to be room for the fruit so we packed it up to bring home again. Then we pottered around the headland and looked at WWII defences and pottered some more and went through a long, scary tunnel and climbed and scaled and admired the view. It’s a really lovely island. It would be cool being the Island Keeper and living in the little house behind the abbey. At least, it would be cool in the summer. It might be a bit boisterous in the winter!

Then it was time to board the boat and go back to Queensferry.

It’s a nice drive between Edinburgh and Queensferry, even if Katie did take us all around the houses getting to the Forth Bridge Road in the morning. She didn’t get the chance on the way back. Ian quite deliberately went down a little road just to see where it went. Where it went, eventually, was into the city centre. We made our way, guided by Katie, back to Morningside and then, without Katie to guide us, went all around the houses looking for Waitrose for supplies for dinner. Having managed to slightly mislay ourselves on the way back to the flat, we put Katie back on. She certainly has her uses, though I remain puzzled about why she sometimes takes us along the roads she does.

We saw lots and lots of seagulls today. Different sorts. But no guillemots. And no puffins, despite the fact they said that there are puffins on the island. We did see some grey seals lolling about on Haystack rock on the way back though. They were cute. Still, one day I would like to see a puffin in the real.