Easter Craiglockart Hill

 We're off work this week and having a staycation in Edinburgh! The weather is beautiful (though possibly too hot to be honest). Today, we had a lovely walk around Easter Craiglockart Hill.

The hill has lovely views across Edinburgh

The steps in the photo below were built a year or so ago and have made a real difference to the accessibility of the hill and protect the ground from excessive erosion.

We saw a good number of Speckled Wood Butterflies (see if you can spot one in the photo below!) 

It was lovely to see Harebells growing on the hill

Crafty Green Boyfriend took some close-ups of these lovely flowers

We walked through the orchard near the Craighouse development. This development has caused much controversy, though this seems to have died down and the developers seem to be sticking to their word of preserving both the historical buildings (which used to be a psychiatric hospital and then was used by Napier University before being sold to developers - you can read more about the history of Craighouse here)

 

 

and much of the greenspace, the orchard is certainly lovely 

and there are beautiful views across to Arthur's Seat