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The John Muir Way is underway. Day 1 started in Dunbar at the John Muir birthplace where a statue of John Muir as a boy is proudly wearing a traffic cone on his head. You can take the boy out of Scotland.... After over-excitedly getting my JMW passport stamped by the lovely staff there, and my companions fitting in some late breakfast bacon & egg rolls in the cafe next door, we started on the 15 mile walk to North Berwick. I was joined by my colleague, Matt, ex-colleague Katharine, and volunteer Sam today, and we reminisced about taking part in the John Muir Way launch festival in 2014 in Dunbar, as well as wide-ranging topics including whether roller-hiking boots with pop-out wheels for the downhills were a viable idea. We passed fields and fields of leeks, sprouts and cabbages, before a lunch stop in East Linton on a park bench and then the long long straight with Berwick Law getting ever closer. The weather and the surroundings felt autumnal today - brambles, apples, hawthorn berries, elderberries, and rosehips, with a rainy start and an even rainier end, but softened by a stop at Alanda's Ice Cream Parlour. A bit of microvolunteering too - a small amount of litter collected, a sign clean, and recording some of the wildlife we saw (hares, grey wagtail, skylarks, little egret - yes; llamas, pigs, ostriches, horses - no). Home by train to dry everything out and pick up the route in North Berwick tomorrow.

How weird it felt to get back on the train this morning to North Berwick and head back to the wooden statue of Ben Sayers (golf something...) and pick up the trail from yesterday. But in much better weather - sunscreen and shades today instead of rain jackets and hoods. My walking buddies today were my colleague, Marie, my ex-colleague Robert, and my very best work pal, Lisa, who has been my partner in crime in Sustrans volunteering for 10 years, and whose last day in that job was today. The end of an L-team era, so great to spend the day walking and talking. And with these friends the conversation is always far-reaching - yes, there was a fair bit of work chat and some discussion of recent breaking news, but also horse urine in suncream, whether Bambi was a fallow or roe deer, and how to decide when to get a tattoo. We walked past a giant field of sunflowers to pause at Archerfield Walled Garden to get my passport stamped, scoff some cakes and pick up some fresh walking socks, and then on to an Aberlady bench for lunch and a quick gallery visit at the Scottish Ornithological Club. Oh yeah, and then an extra mile and a half added on for me to go back to the lunch bench and get the binoculars I'd left there - oh well, it made up for a couple of metres of sneaky corner-cuts that Robert persuaded us to take - he was responsible for working with SNH in 2013 to sign the John Muir Way and knew all the secrets about route alignment. By the time the route circled the site of the old Cockenzie Power Station and then merged into the beginnings of Prestonpans, the jelly babies were out (not the ones that got melted on the radiator last night while drying my kit) and the FitBit clocked 25 km by the time we reached the train. Managed a bigger litterpick today using my #2minutecleanup bag and was clearly very excited to empty it into the bin. Hares, eider ducks, common carder bees and gannets all logged on iRecord too. Feet and knees intact so far - ask me again tomorrow.

Blue skies and sunshine for today’s walk with my ex-colleague, Phil, from Prestonpans to Edinburgh. A ropey start with a closed-off route and a need to divert to the post office with an urgent parcel, but then we were off out of Prestonpans and along the coast to join route 76 around Musselburgh lagoons. Spotted my first skein of geese flying overhead, a raft of eider ducks out on the water, and then oystercatchers, curlews and goosanders all along the coast. Sustrans’ artwork survey was on my list of things to volunteer to do today – we are asking volunteers to walk or cycle sections of National Cycle Network and let us know about any artworks they find. Gardner Molloy’s Fisherrow Fishermen are just off route 76 here, where they stand looking out to sea, representing the fishing heritage of the area and conveniently acting as bollards for the promenade. Since I last saw them, one of them has been gifted shells, pennies and treats into his lap. The rest of the walk was familiar territory – Brunstane Burn Path, then meeting route 1 through Magdalene Glen and along the Innocent Cycle Path, where we filled a #2minutecleanup bag with litter, before auto-piloting to follow the NCN instead of the John Muir Way for a short section (oops). A quick correction to approach the Meadows from another angle, over through Bruntsfield and down to the Union Canal for a sunny lunch sitting on the towpath at the Lift Bridge. Phil was my colleague and boss for many years, leaving Sustrans in 2021 when we were all still largely working from home because of Covid, so it was good to catch up in person and talk through old times at work, families, getting older and our shared interest in natural history and biodiversity.

An early start today meant that the two places in Prestonpans where I could stamp my John Muir Way passport were both shut, so I headed to the one stamping station in Edinburgh when I got back - Gordon Nicolson Kiltmakers on Canongate. It's not on the route, so needed a quick side-trip, but they said they get one or two stamping requests each week. As I volunteer in Grassmarket Tartans, I was delighted to discover that not only was the person I spoke to once the weaver of the Greyfriars tartan that is bespoke to that charity project, but that GNK also make a John Muir Way tartan, which is “an ode to the spectacular coastline of East Lothian”. With the approval of Scottish Natural Heritage, Gordon Nicolson brought the colours of the red stone cliffs and bright blue seas and skies of his hometown of Dunbar together with greens and browns, to reach the design which they think "would have delighted the great environmentalist". It’s beautiful.

Hoping today wouldn’t bring the same tick-removal drama as last night (who knew Prestonpans was a hot-spot?), I headed down to the Leamington Lift Bridge to start the next section of John Muir Way. My walking crew for this stage was fluid, but it started with Sustrans volunteer Kenny, and my colleagues Emilia and Adam, who found a squashed newt and spotted a kingfisher on the Saughton Burn before they needed to head off. Adam introduced us to the concept of a ’spark bird’ – the one that sparks a love of birdwatching in you. Joined by Rosanna, who also volunteers for Sustrans, Kenny and I carried on over Corstorphine Hill (past the zoo), talking among other things about life’s path, and the purpose of umbrella covers when it’s so hard to get the umbrella back into them. We arrived at Davidson’s Mains Park where another volunteer, Gary and his wife, Karen, kindly met us with coffee, tea and cake to fuel our journey. Gary carried on with us, and we joined route 1 past JK Rowling’s garden with its double treehouses-with-slides, and over Cramond Bridge (obligatory Millennium Milepost selfie) before sharing some jelly babies with a passer-by who, in return, shared his story of cycling the John Muir Way. The Kiltmakers yesterday kindly stamped my passport for this section, as there isn’t a stamping station on this one, so without that to think about we pressed on through Dalmeny Estate, by beaches deep in cockle shells, and power lines heavy with starlings. There are some wonderful placenames in the estate – Hound Point, Midlothian Clump, Crow Thickets, Eagle Rock…although there was some debate over whether the eagle carved there looked more like a penguin or a bear with a hat. Gary gave me some quick tree-101 facts to reignite all the tree ID knowledge that’s fallen out my brain, and also a lesson in how to make a pea shooter out of an elder twig. We pulled some invasive Himalayan Balsam out as we went, compared Latin textbooks from school (Ecce Romani), spotted some shelducks, and eventually arrived at the side of the Forth Rail Bridge and the painfully enormous flight of stairs to Dalmeny station and the train home. With most credit to Kenny and Rosanna, we litterpicked the ENTIRE 15 miles of the walk, emptying bags into bins as we passed. I also did the artwork survey on the NCN sections and cleaned a John Muir Way sign of some dubious graffiti, which it’s probably best not to share a picture of, but let’s just say wasn’t very anatomically accurate. I keep thinking it’s the weekend – it IS the weekend, but the walk goes on.

The balance tipped today – I started the day with more miles to walk than already walked, but ended the day with the opposite. It’s the weekend! Which meant my friends Kat, Chris and Doug - who I hadn't seen for a long time - were free to join me, and we set off from South Queensferry into the grounds of Hopetoun House to meet greater spotted woodpeckers and fallow deer, and use the Merlin app to identify a nuthatch calling in the trees. A section of the John Muir Way just past Abercorn was closed for up to 10 weeks, so we followed the diversion over some fairly rough ground to pick it up again just before Blackness Castle. The Castle is a stamping station, and also a supplier of quality ice-cream to visitors, so we took advantage of both. An elderly gentleman in the carpark asked if we could take his photo with his bike to send to his wife back in Galway, who ‘wouldn’t believe that he was cycling’ – he was 84 and had just ridden along route 76 from Bo’ness to the Castle; his first time on a bike in 10 years. We followed his footsteps (tyre tracks) along the same path and around the coast at Bo’ness looking for glimpses of the Hippodrome, having a quick go on the flying fox in the playpark, and recording some of the artworks for the Sustrans artwork survey. I hadn’t been to Kinneil House before, so appreciated the walk through the grounds that came next, stopping into the Museum to check the route with someone whose name-badge said he had an MBE. Possibly for direction-giving....we followed his instructions to pass the Antonine Guard reenactment groups that were holding an event, skirt the symmetrical house and head into the woods. From there we followed the long stretch of Fishers’ Brae - playing bits of songs with John Muir in the title - onto an unpleasant section of road verge (triple checking the map, and yes, that was the route), through the outskirts of Linlithgow, and into the town for the station. It was brilliant to catch up with my friends and that was the main focus of today although I also pulled a few bits of Himalayan balsam in the woods, and shared some information about the John Muir Award. As this sign in Bo’ness - a lyric from a Frightened Rabbit song - reminded, a difference can be made in small ways.

Long days and evening prep have meant I haven't had much time to continue reading John Muir's "The Story of my Boyhood and Youth" recently, but shorter miles and a later start today meant I could catch up with a few pages about him discovering new bird species after arriving in Wisconsin. After yesterday's nuthatch calls in the woods, I particularly liked this passage about them. "We loved to watch them as they traced the bark-furrows of the oaks and hickories head downward, deftly flicking off loose scales and splinters in search of insects, and braving the coldest weather as if their little sparks of life were as safely warm in winter as in summer, unquenchable by the severest frost. When we were out chopping we never ceased to wonder how their slender flaked toes could be kept warm when our own were so painfully frosted though clad in thick socks and boots. And we wondered and admired the more when we thought of the little midgets sleeping in knot-holes when the temperature was far below zero, sometimes thirty-five degrees below, and in the morning, after a minute breakfast of a few frozen insects and hoarfrost crystals, playing and chatting in cheery tones as if food, weather, and everything was according to their own warm hearts." (Image: RSPB)

Back to Linlithgow this morning and the long walk back from the station to the point that I left off yesterday. But that meant a chance for one of my walking companions, Richard, to show us the streetside planters he looks after as well as volunteering for Sustrans, and to challenge a bit of pavement parking by a butcher’s van with a sign saying ‘No sausages are left in this vehicle overnight’. With my colleague, Kasia, and Liz (who volunteers on the National Cycle Network around Cambuslang and had hopped on the train to join us), we picked up the John Muir Way at Linlithgow Bridge and headed along the River Avon Heritage Trail. Richard was a forester, spending time in Belize, Borneo and Malaysia as well as working in the UK, and he passed on information about the woodlands we were walking through and shared stories with Kasia about the Polish forests that he had visited, and which she knew well. The trail led us to the Avon aqueduct which is the longest and tallest aqueduct in Scotland, and the second longest in Britain, and which has two Historic Environment Scotland listings, one for each of the local authority areas it spans. Richard told us about its construction - which he also tells passengers on the canal boats that he drives for Linlithgow Canal Society - as a kingfisher flew below us over the weir. A quick stop at the Bridge 49 café for coffee and cake and a long conversation about Covid – Liz is a retired nurse who returned to work during the pandemic, and Richard volunteered at the local vaccination centre. We agreed it seems so strange to look back on. After a peek at what Scottish Canals describes as the ‘unique rural neighbourhood’ of Causewayend, which has 6 residential canal boat moorings, we said so long to Richard and carried on along the Union Canal (route 754 of the NCN) for several miles. We talked about camper vans, parasites, slugs and tolerance, Kasia told us about her experience of walking the Camino de Santiago, and we compared notes about the start of Strictly, while we collected and emptied several bagfuls of litter. Eventually the Way led us to Callendar House, an enormous 14th century French chateau-styled house, which none of us had ever visited before but which has art galleries, a library and a gift shop…and is also a John Muir Way stamping station. The man who stamped my passport was worried it was a bit pale compared to the other stamps, but Liz diagnosed it as just a bit 'anaemic' :). A short walk to Falkirk High train station and we parted ways with a train back to Edinburgh arriving immediately, giving my feet a needed rest. Today’s 'Conserve' tasks for the John Muir Award, in addition to the litterpick, were to record some of the many butterflies we saw – Speckled Woods tumbling in the dappled sunlight of the trees, and at one point six Red Admirals flitting about the ivy - and Kasia and I also cleaned a John Muir Way sign of some black splodges. As some passers-by went past they thanked us – Richard told them if they stood still long enough we’d clean them too. Another great day.