We sat on a bench, licking luscious ice cream, and looking out towards the Forth Rail Bridge. I never tire of viewing this magnificent structure and marvelling that it was constructed by men minus lasers and modern power equipment. A testament to human ingenuity and muscle.
There was blue sky overhead and not a breath of wind. The water was flat calm. A perfect summer day.
Kids with nets were on the rocks with their parents. Others with bucket and spade were making sand pies. A kayak was in the water and two people were fishing from the pier. Not catching but enjoying just being out. The sailing school at nearby Port Edgar was out en masse in the bay between the old road bridge and the rail bridge, not much wind, but still enjoyable.
The town was bustling and car parking was at a premium, with foreign number plates on view. Indeed, so many were also enjoying the weather that every space was taken and they were even parking well out of town over the brow of the hill from The Hawes Inn on the old Edinburgh road.
We popped into The Hawes Inn for lunch, but more of that later.
The main focus was on the High Street. Behind our bench, sadly, was red, plastic fencing, keeping pedestrians and vehicles from the road works. Yes, road works in the height of summer and the height of the tourist season.
No need for speed bumps on the High Street. Driving, or cycling, along the road is a jolting experience. Some of the cobbles are loose. Patching – with tarmac, not cobbles, would you believe – has been done, but other aspects of the road, including gutters, are being worked on. It is a mess.
What message does this give to the tourists who flood in to see the three bridges and to enjoy the town once described by a broadsheet food critic as “a village in a bottle”.
Extremely hash that, and off the mark. South Queensferry is worth a trip, yes, even with the roadworks.
Back to the ice cream. LouLou’s ice cream and coffee shop at 55 High Street (EH30 9HN) is described as “a little gem”. Believe me, it is. My lactose intolerance does not allow for normal ice cream so, normally, others indulge and I view.
Here they cater. There is a huge variety of ice cream, my fellow travellers loved the Scottish Tablet and vanilla, and I had a vegan strawberry. There are lemon and raspberry sorbet alternatives.
Flavours are subject to change, incidentally, but staff were efficient and you can savour the delights in a tub or cone. The cone is equally scrumptious. Other options on the day included Turkish Delight, Cookie Monster, Ferrero Rocher and Isle of Skye Salt Caramel. There are many more.
The ice cream treat followed lunch at the nearby Hawes Inn at 7 Newhalls Road (EH30 9TA).
They have a lunch special for around £21 but we could not resist fish and chips. The fillet arrived with a slice of lemon, tartare sauce and great chips along with mushy peas, something I can’t resist.
At just under £20 is was good value in an establishment which has recently undergone an extensive facelift. Good to see real ale – Timothy Taylor’s Landlord, a classic pale ale brewed by the family-owned brewery in West Yorkshire and a four-time CAMRA Supreme Champion Beer of Britain, was on tap – in this dog friendly pub with strong connections with the author Robert Louis Stevenson.
It is said he stayed at the inn and wrote part of his famous novel Kidnapped in one of the rooms.
The clatter of trains crossing the rail bridge could be heard from the dining room, but it did not interrupt our chat. The rail bridge is where we came in, and we enjoyed the whole experience and the view of the bridges over the water to North Queensferry is something to savour, even for locals.
CREME DE LA ICE CREME: LouLou’s shop in the High Street. Picture Nigel Duncan
