Day 602: Super Mum’s Seat

19/03/2023

Saturday morning was straight downstairs for another beautiful Zoom wedding. Lachlan was excited to see “Haze” and “Tm” on the big screen. Congratulations newlyweds, it looked like a truly wonderful day!

Just before the action started, Eloise flew down the stairs and joined the busy Super Mum couch.

It was then time to get the day on a roll. When Super Mum was upstairs we quickly wrapped her presents for Mother’s Day tomorrow. Eloise was happy with how her plaster model had turned out.

The only issue was that it took much longer than planned. Lachlan was not so keen on wrapping and was more interested in playing with all his beloved dinos.

After hiding the presents away Eloise promised she would do her best to keep a secret and we jumped into the car.

After a short drive, we arrived at the Barras Markets in the east end to walk through the strangest collection of shops and stalls. 

One thing for certain, there were some very thick Glaswegian accents. Admittedly a bit confused by the whole experience we rushed home because Eloise wanted to get back to making her masks. Again, another chance for her to use her beloved scissors.

This morning we tried to give Super Mum a sleep in but the kids were too excited, “MUM, MUM, you coming down now? MUM, MUM, can you hear me? We have presents, you need to come down now”. The kids’ gifts went down a treat and Eloise had even made Super Mum a special Mother’s Day card at nursery.

While Lachlan played with Super Mum, Eloise made a start on the hot breakfast, she is an egg-cracking machine.

Full of food and energy we jumped in the car and made our way across to Edinburgh to celebrate Mother’s Day, looks like it might be becoming a tradition here. However, we were not heading to Edinburgh Castle today, today we planned to do Edinburgh’s other famous peak.

This morning the plan was to climb Arthur’s Seat, “rocky summit towers over Edinburgh, with fabulous views in all directions”, a two boot rated walkinghighlands climb. Lachlan happily climbed into the hiking carrier, in fact, he had already climbed in before we had left the house and was not happy when we had to pull him out. Eloise had other ideas though and strapped her baby unicorn to her back ready to climb.

As we set off we realised Arthur’s Seat was not the walk we thought it was, uh oh. In a past few Edinburgh FIK posts we have incorrectly identified Salisbury Crags as Arthur’s Seat from Calton Hill. Turns out Arthur’s Seat is not the ledge walk, but the even taller peak behind.

We were looking forward to this walk, we had heard good things about it from a number of people and it always looks impressive in Edinburgh. Lachlan was working overtime pointing out and shouting at all of the dogs on the path.

Eloise and baby unicorn were setting a cracking pace. We were wondering how long she would keep this up and how willing she would be to retire into the hiking carrier when she had had enough. Along the main track, there were a series of smaller paths on either side which Eloise absolutely loved, she was quick to declare these small tracks “Eloise only” paths and would be pumping her little legs up. She was not happy when anyone dared step on her Eloise track.

At stages, the Eloise track was close to rather large drops but luckily Eloise let Dad walk with her on these sections, there was just one condition, she said we had to stay ahead of Super Mum and Lachlan.

In no time at all we had made it halfway up, the views were already impressive, Lachlan was enjoying the bumpy ride and was singing his head off, all the way up.

After a quick breather, we set off again, much to our amazement Eloise was still going strong.

It was a fairly busy path at some stages, the latest Google Photos update impressively took care of that.

Eloise was incredibly still going, she was having a ball. She didn’t always choose the best walking line, but nothing was going to stop her, not even “dirty hands”.

She must have looked like she was enjoying it because Lachlan was keen for a runaround. Although he was so excited he used most of his energy bopping up and down and not walking forwards. He managed to get over some tricky bits before retiring to the hiking carrier.

Eloise was on a mission and nothing was going to get in her way, we actually had to shout at her a few times to stop and wait for us.

As we approached the summit of the ancient volcano it got steeper and steeper as Eloise evolved into a rock wallaby. She had by far exceeded our expectations on this walk and we were busy scanning about making sure she stayed on a safe line. Dad’s back was the real winner out of all of this.

Just after half an hour, we made it to the summit and the panoramic views were as good as we had been promised.

It was the perfect spot for snacks. The kids were soaking up the atmosphere. Super Mum had done a great job carrying Lachlan up, who is considerably heavier since our last hike in the Lake District.

It is so close to the city, we strongly recommend this walk to the cast of thousands making their way over to Scotland this year. We are sure Eloise would be happy to guide you up.

It was then time for the descent, the kids still had great spirits and now Eloise was full of M&M’s she was more than happy to keep walking.

The descent on the city side was rather steep in spots. Liam had to shuffle back and forth helping the family down, luckily Eloise was very good at listening and happily sat while enjoying the view and yelling encouragement to Super Mum and Lachlan.

Safely at the bottom, we made our way past the fake Arthur’s Seat, Salisbury Crags, back to the car park. Lachlan was still happily singing along and Eloise still had energy.

With only a few hundred meters left, Lachlan wanted to finish off the glory leg at top speed.

We were completely blown away that Eloise had managed the whole walk by herself, amazing!

Arthur’s Seat is an ancient volcano which is the main peak of the group of hills in Edinburgh, Scotland, which form most of Holyrood Park, described by Robert Louis Stevenson as “a hill for magnitude, a mountain in virtue of its bold design”. It is situated just to the east of the city centre, about 1 mile (1.6 km) to the east of Edinburgh Castle. The hill rises above the city to a height of 250.5 m (822 ft), provides excellent panoramic views of the city and beyond, is relatively easy to climb, and is popular for hillwalking. Though it can be climbed from almost any direction, the easiest and simplest ascent is from the east, where a grassy slope rises above Dunsapie Loch. At a spur of the hill, Salisbury Crags has historically been a rock climbing venue with routes of various degrees of difficulty. Until recently rock climbing was restricted to the South Quarry, but access is currently banned altogether by Historic Environment Scotland

For lunch, we had the perfect picnic behind the Palace of Holyroodhouse with our tartan picnic rug.

Once we had our energy back we waltzed into Edinburgh to start stocking up on souvenirs again. Of course, we ended up at Costa’s, we had earnt this one at least.

After a big day, we made our way back to the car and had to try and keep the kids awake all the way home. Which lasted the best part of half an hour.

Tonight, Bounce Back to Netball had returned now that the significantly upgraded Allander Leisure Centre had opened. The like minded mummas were reunited to discuss how great all their hubbies are.