Cycling along Union Canal and the Water of Leith 7/1/2006

There isn't a lot of water right now and there is NO activity on the boards, emails, etc, related to paddling, so we find ourselves in search of "other" adventures. Today, the Union Canal towpath and Water of Leith Visitor Centre were our destinations. We rode through the city (a first for me, for any city) to pick up the trail along the canal. Apparently, the trail runs all the way to the Falkirk Wheel (30ish miles) including a pass by the mountain bike trails in the Pentlands (5-10 miles, I think). We rode to the Water of Leith Visitor Centre to scout a wee portion of the river and perhaps pick up a map. The canal passes over railroad tracks as well as the Water of Leith on bridges, something I had never seen before, so of course I took pictures. The Visitor Centre exhibits are pretty fun. It is definitely somewhere I would have taken my Fluid Mechanics class had a similar resource existed in Nashville. The map cost £1, so it seemed silly to not buy it. Between Balerno and the Firth of Forth, I counted sixteen weirs. I'd guess that the distance is no more than ten miles, probably less. Sixteen portages in ten miles. That's crazy. We rode a little upstream of the Visitor Centre before turning around to head home. My frozen hands made the decision to return home and my sore butt thanked me when we got there.