Walking in the Pentlands

Last week as part of our staycation, we made several day trips in the Edinburgh area. I blogged yesterday about our trip to North Berwick and today I'm sharing photos from our walk across the Pentlands from Flotterstone to Balerno.

We got a bus down to Flotterstone and had a cup of tea in the lovely cafe that is part of the Countryside Rangers Centre

It's a lovely cosy little cafe with a good snack menu, well worth dropping into before or after a long walk across the Pentlands.

There's a nice little carved bench just near the cafe

which marks the beginning of the trail over the hills.

Nearby is a replica of a sheep stell where sheep used to be herded for lambing, shearing or marking or to protect them from poor weather

The scenery here features gentle hills

and the picturesque Glencorse Reservoir, which is used for boating and fishing

 The routes are mostly well sign posted

We went further into the hills, though staying mostly on the lower paths to avoid vertigo

we were amazed by the numbers of house martins and swallows flying around in certain areas and delighted to see this painted lady

 along with lots of these large caterpillars, in one area there were caterpillars everywhere we looked! I don't know what they will grow up to be, if you do recognise the species let me know in the comments.

Edited to add: Steve from the very useful Wildlife Insight Caterpillars webpages tells me this is a fox moth caterpillar.

 
We were disappointed not to see any rabbits despite this sign

We stopped for a snack at the side of Harlaw Reservoir (which is one of the reservoirs that feeds into the Water of Leith)

and we wandered along the woodland path by the side of the reservoir. We were particularly impressed by this fly agaric toadstool (warning this is poisonous)

We finally walked along the side of Treipmuir reservoir

 to Red Moss from where it's a short walk to Balerno (past the Scottish SPCA Animal Rescue Centre where we adopted our bunny Anya all those years ago) where we caught a bus back to the centre of Edinburgh.

The Pentland Hills are a Regional Country Park and there a number of walking routes through the area. You can find out more about these routes here. It's a great place to explore and enjoy the outdoors.