Family Camping Trip to Beecraigs Country Park

Harrison had another long weekend (May 17 - 20) with a school holiday and Phil had Sunday off from teaching yoga so we all went camping together to Beecraigs Country Park about 3 miles south of Linlithgow (about 20 minutes west of central Edinburgh by train). We continue to be amazed by the public transportation systems here ... we took a train and then a subsidized taxi to the park (the majority of the fare is waived since there is no public bus to the park). The area has beautiful rolling green hills and amazing views ... to one side the west of Scotland and to the other completely across to the east side of the country and the sea.

The park was awesome and is certainly off the main tourist path ... great camping facilities, an awesome play park for children (and adults ... yes that is Harriet at the top of the rope tower!), a deer farm, an outdoor activities centre, and a small trout-stocked lake/loch. They even have a restaurant in the park with very good food and even better views east to the Firth of Forth bridges, Arthur's Seat, and the south shore of Fife. While walking we noticed a huge rock formation that shone red in the setting sun and reminded us of Ayer's Rock in Australia ... it is actually a formation of Bing shale (a red russet colour of rock) in the nearby location of Winchburgh that in the past was used as a source of oil and other by-products.

We walked from Beecraigs in just under two hours to Cairnpapple Hill which few people seem to know about but is Scotland's most significant Neolithic site with remains of a henge and burial cairns. This place managed by Historic Scotland dates back to 3500 BCE and is Scotland's equivalent of Stonehenge. Excavations in the late 1940's suggest it was used over thousands of years for different purposes. Unlike Stonhenge, this site is very minimally managed and there are few restrictions in terms of when and how close you can get to the structures.

We highly recommend the park and Cairnpapple to people with similar interests when they visit Scotland. It was a great weekend.