Turf Zone – GeorgeSquare
The challenge of the Edinburgh Roon continues and if there was one thing I could wish for it would be to get rid of all those bloody cobbles on the streets of Edinburgh. You plan a seemingly sensible route from one to zone another zone only to find you have to cycle across a mile of teeth chattering, organ wobbling and brain bouncing granite cobbles. Seems that the north side of the city centre is the worst, heading down towards the Water of Leith. They are even more of a pain in the buttocks when trying to cycle back uphill. I wonder if there’s a map of Edinburgh that highlights streets paved with cobbles? Would be useful for avoiding them.
Anyway, I’ve managed to walk or cycle the streets of Edinburgh all the way to 54 zones, leaving me with another 86 remaining, so getting there. I’m also delighted to find myself in pole position though turfer Cruachan is not far behind and I don’t see myself holding there for long, well, unless he falls off his bike, emigrates to Australia or something. Would be nice to get that gold medal but it’s the taking part that is important, isn’t it? Bugger, who am I trying to kid?
Today, I hopped on the bus again, alighting at Haymarket railway station for my first zone HaymarketRail, only to find the zone had just been taken and I had to wait 15 minutes before the zone cleared. Rather annoying when that happens. Also found myself needing a call of nature but was there a toilet available to the public? No there bloody well wasn’t! What, you need to purchase a train ticket to cross the barrier and use the toilet? My next target was zone Hidden, up towards Bruntsfield. Perhaps there was a toilet at Fountain Park? Same story there. Thankfully, found a public toilet that was actually open at Bruntsfield Links. Phew.
My session today was not too strenuous which was good as I was on foot. Started at zone HaymarketRail, then up towards Bruntsfield for zone Hidden, across to the castle for zone HillGate, then all the way down the Royal Mile and into Holyrood Park for zone HistoryZone. Then to save repeating that mile long walk, I hopped on the No 35 bus, hopping off again at the museum, a few minutes’ walk from zone Hogwarts in Greyfriars graveyard.
At that point I was originally planning on bussing back home but my next target zone, HolyLutton, was only a 20-minute walk, so set out for that one. There, zone HolyRoodPark was only another 10-minutes’ walk, so took that one as well. Did have a bit of a moment when I saw turfer spads heading towards the zone and I must admit to uttering a mild naughty word but spads had seem me and waiting for me. Thanks, spads! Final zone of the session was HunterSquare at the Tron. Only eight zones towards the 140 mission zones of the Edinburgh Rood but every little counts. Mores soon.
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