Hiking With Kids - Arthur's Seat

Edinburgh's Wee Hill




What is it?


Arthur's seat is a small hill, 250m in height, which is located in the city of Edinburgh. This can be walked in a couple of hours and is particularly suitable if you are walking with children, and on a good day you can get great views of the city and beyond.

Getting There




The start of the walk can be easily accessible from Edinburgh Waverly train station. Walking from the station to Holyrood park will take about 40 minutes. There are buses that will travel past this area, including the tourist sightseeing bus. If travelling by car then there are plenty of car parks to stop at. We were lucky enough to park opposite the Scottish parliament building. There are plenty places to visit around this area, including the afore mentioned parliament building, the palace, which has free toilet facilities and Dynamic Earth science centre. 

Where to go

This Way

The track can be muddy


There is a well worn path up to the summit of Arthur's seat. To choose the correct path, take the track that is heading away from the parliament building and head up towards to the ruins of an old Abby. 
From there continue up the track. Once you reach the plateau, look for the metal fence and follow that up to the summit. This is useful if you are walking in typical Scottish weather. It gets rocky near the top so be careful not to slip in wet conditions. 

Follow the Fence

What else can you see?
It took is just over 2 hours to get up and back down to the car, not bad for a family of 6. This is an ideal walk to spend a little time out and about. The views are worth the walk, weather dependant of course. 

Well earned birthday treat

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cort-ma Law

Image
  Cort-ma Law Less than an hours drive from Glasgow, just north of Lennoxtown are the Campsie hills, which allows for a quick days hike.  Starting Point The best place to start is at the Campsie Glen waterfall car park. This can get busy, so it is best to try and get a parking space early. The walk itself starts directly opposite the car park.  Car park location Location of hill Route The track ascends immediately from the carpark travelling east, go past the old shelter covered in graffiti. Shelter Hike up from the car park The track continues upward and the track could be tricky at this point for younger walkers. The first part of the walk ends at a small cairn marker.  First marker cairn From there the hike undulates for 2km as it snakes it's way slightly south of the actual top. Here you will reach a bigger cairn marker.  Second marker cairn From this marker turn north east to the trig point 4.5 km distance. The height of the summit is 526m. We reached the t...
Read more

Dechmont Hill

Image
Walking With Kids At last, after a weekend where it barely stopped raining there was a break in the weather, and a chance to get out. Dechmont hill is our closest climb and measures just under 200m, which gives the kids a chance to get to the top. We parked on the road that runs parallel behind Gilbertfield road. The walk started on the track that leads to Dechmont farm and the shooting range. They are now turning this area into housing, so be careful of builders lorries etc. We took a left turn at the road which leads to the farm, and then a right at the Dechmont Range House, now abandoned. The track ends at a small compound, but takes you past the ruins of Gilbertfield Castle. Gilbertfield Castle The compound contains a couple of old houses which acts as a control station for the shooting range. There is no access through it, instead take a left turn before the end of the track and make your way through the grass. There is a path through here but can be obscured by the tall grass sur...
Read more

Bike and Hike

Image
"It was a shame that for all the beauty of the scenery that the top of the mountain was covered in mist." Ben Alder and Ben Bheoil  These two Munros stand south of Dalwhinnie in a remote part of Scotland. The best way of getting to them is to cycle out to Culra bothy, some 17km, which, I suppose is one way of warming up before a lengthy hike. These hills were not even on my radar for possible hills to visit but something happened that changed all that. I have had a mountain bike for over 20 years now, for over 15 years it has been covered up, sitting, rusting out the back. A few years ago I did replace the main gear cassette and chain however frustrated at not getting the gears working properly I gave up and left it. That was until the start of the summer. I had decided on not worrying about gears, all I wanted to do is to cycle and to have a bike that would be a low maintenance as possible. With that in mind I took the gear shifters off, pushed the rear mech back and fixed t...
Read more