View From A Plane

Today I flew to Copenhagen, got the train to Sweden and checked into a really funky hotel with impressive designer touches in the room. So it really seems wrong in some waysto be posting a photograph of the area where I live and travel to work each day. And yet...

The conditions were remarkably clear, and even though I've had to do a fair amount of processing on this picture - and it shows - it does give a lovely idea of what this part of Scotland looks like.

North in this picture is the top of the image. At the north west part of this picture, we have Dunfermline, one of Scotland's many ancient capitals, and reputed to be the burial place of King Robert the Bruce. Sandwiched between Dunfermline and the River Forth is Rosyth - proud Admiralty town and still home to a functioning naval dockyard, which is involved in the assembly of the biggest aircraft carriers Britain has ever owned.

Moving west, we have Inverkeithing, which is on the north side of the river, just a little to the east of where the bridges make northern landfall. There is a huge inlet in the river just at Inverkeithing, where Scotland's largest aquarium is situated - Deep Sea World.

South again, and we hit more land before we get to the rail bridge - that land holdds the village of North Queesnferry, where ex-prime minister Gordon Brown lives.

East again, and we get to the town of Dalgety Bay. As well as being Scotland's largest private New Town, this is where I work!

South of Dalgety Bay, in the the river itself, is a loading bay where oil tankers are filled with oil coming from the North Sea, and refined at Grangemouth (which is just a touch out of this picture to the west.

Between the two bridges on the southern coast of the river is the town of South Queensferry. This is the town where I worked for almost ten years, and its hills are where I learned to run! The Hawes Inn, as mentioned in Robert Louis Stevenson's "Kidnapped", is on the waterfront and marks the start of a vicious hill that I had to learn to run up... I'm sure it must have done me the world of good!

South of South Queensferry is the town of Kirkliston, and south again you can see the magnificent Almond Valley viaduct. This railway bridge is going to be the subject of a future photo of the day, so I'm not going to say anything about it here.

So... that's why I'm not posting a picture of Sweden - I loved this one too much!