A glorious walk through nature

So, like, hundreds of years ago, Robert Burns (you might have heard of him) wrote a poem/song called The Birks of Aberfeldy (read it here). His song was about the gorgeous birch trees of Moness Gorge, near the wee town of Aberfeldy in Perthshire. Mr Mac, Mum, James, Ewan and I all decided to take advantage of the promise of some sunshine and headed there for a walk over summer; the gorge has a clearly marked circular walk up through the gorge under the shade and shelter of the famed birch trees, to the Moness Falls and back down again. I hadn’t been there before so was keen to pay a visit to one of Scotland’s best known nature walks.

The beautiful birch tree

We drove up through some absolutely gorgeous scenery, through Fife and into Perthshire, through the town of Aberfeldy itself and easily found parking at the start of the walk. Mum had visited before with my sister. She had told me that it was an uphill climb but was confident that I would manage it. We let Mum lead the way. At the start of the walk, we eschewed the bridge across Moness Burn to the left and took the pathway to the right. Mum wasn’t lying when she told us it was an uphill climb; after half an hour of a gentle-medium uphill walk, I wondered just how far uphill we’d be walking. It probably took about an hour of uphill climb before we made it to the summit, crossed the bridge and found the Moness Falls.

Sort of at the top of the gorge

The walk was simply beautiful. Quiet and cool on a hot day, the trees offered lots of shade and showed off lots of gorgeous shades of green, glinting in the sunlight. Along the way we stopped and looked behind up to admire the view.

A beautiful view down towards Strathtay and Ben Vrackie

On the way down, we came across the spot where Robert Burns himself is said to have taken a break and was inspired by the beauty of his surrounding to write about it.

The spot where Burns was inspired to write the poem. I sat here, looking for inspiration. I was inspired to suggest that we head into Aberfeldy for lunch.

And then at the bottom of the walk, we met Burns himself.

A statue of Robert Burns, thinking about all the beauty around him. I suppose.

It wasn’t until we were at the bottom again that we realised that we’d taken the wrong route. The walk info recommends you take the left turn over the bridge and walk the gorge in a clock-wise walk. I think, actually, we did it right. If you walk up the left side of the gorge, there are a lot of really deep steps to climb. Whereas, if you walk up anti-clockwise, on the right side of the gorge, it’s an uphill climb with a few steep parts but a lot more pleasant that having to climb big steps. You know, if you ask me.

But anyway, it was a really lovely walk. At the end of it, we all felt we’d done something really worthwhile and spent some time a spot of real, natural beauty. Yes, even the boys. Great day out.