Wednesday Walk - first time around the reservoirs this year

My wife and I took a walk around the reservoirs the other day. The provide the water supply for Edinburgh and sit in the hills above the city.

There are quite a lot of walking options around them with quite a few different paths and routes, and we will normally go quite a few times each year.

There are three interlinked reservoirs in total to provide all of the water needs of the city. The first two are right beside each other and thats the ones we went round. The pic above shows the overflow channel for the first reservoir. The water level was close-ish to the top so the reservoir is fairly full - as it should be at this time of year.

The paths are quite wide and well maintained. They are also fairly flat, so it makes for quite a nice walk.

There were quite a few geese in the fields adjacent to the first reservoir (the Harlaw Reservoir). We see a lot of migratory geese at this time of year in Scotland because they stop here for a rest as part of their migration route.

We went around the first reservoir and then across the bridge that spans the overflow channel for the second reservoir (the Threipmuir Reservoir). As can be seen from the photos it was a grey-ish day, with a bit of drizzle (very light rain) - but it was still a nice day for a walk.

The reservoirs are man-made and quite impressive from an engineering perspective. The 3 interlinked reservoirs are at height so that they gravity feed the cities water supply. They also have the volume to manage the supply throughout droughts and the like - although to be fair, in Scotland we got a lot of rain (I mean tons) - so droughts is not something we ever really suffer from.

As said, there are a load of walking routes and paths around the reservoirs and as such its really popular.

While there we saw that they were expanding the car parks and also adding an eco-toilet block to the second car park, which is great. They really do get busy, so the extra spaces are needed - as are the extra toilet facilities.

After passing the second reservoir we then went onto the Red Moss Nature Reserve. Its an additional boardwalk that spans over an area of wet bog. Its pretty cool to see, and has information boards along the route about the bogland and how its managed. This type of habitat is rare in the world, but we have a lot of it here in Scotland, and we do try to protect it.

All told we probably covered about 4-5 miles by the time we got around both reservoirs and the nature reserve, so it really was a lovely walk. It was also nice to get there for the first time this year. Thats my wednesday walk for this week. All the best from Scotland !

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