Edinburgh

After Dunbar, the terrain was mostly flat with a few big lumps that Mark Gladwyn would like. I didn't try them.  Rocky islands appeared off the coast, one large one completely white.   I headed to North Berwick, a well kept, bustling town which had won Britain in Bloom in 2010 and also achieved Loo of the Year several times in its heyday in the 1990s.  In my opinion the loos have gone downhill a bit since then.  The small harbour offered bird-watching trips, probably to the white island.

I was going to stop at the village of Gullane for tea, but it was full of traffic cones, police, and lots of signs telling you not to do this and that, and generally to move on.  Something to do with the golf thingy.  I moved on a few miles to a bothy shop and café which had a perfect selection of cakes. 

Then I was back on the shore of the Firth of Forth whizzing along by the water's edge.  Edinburgh was in sight but a long way round the bay.  After several small villages I came to Portobello beach which I guess is an Edinburgh suburb, with a nice promenade bordering a narrow windswept beach. 

On round the coast to Leith in the North, which for some reason I expected to be rough, but it was perfectly fine at 6pm on a Sunday. At the Ocean liner terminal I turned inland and travelled most of the way to the city centre youth hostel on a network of cycle paths through green avenues - I think they were once railways serving the docks.