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City Walks: Edinburgh, Scotland - Historic City Center, Royal Mile, Exploring the Scottish Capital
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Mar 18, 2025
City Walks: Edinburgh, Scotland - Historic City Center, Exploring the Scottish Capital More Edinburgh Walks Here - https://tinyurl.com/y6f6xhcy My very first City Walks is in the capital city of Edinburgh, Scotland. I started out in the morning on Calton Hill and had to take it back up in the afternoon as I had a battery issue. There will be some figuring of things out as I go along. We pass by many prime Edinburgh attractions. This first walk has a break around Holyrood palace, after the castle and old town, because my battery died, but I recharged, and continued on past Arthurs Seat in the afternoon. Edinburgh is an amazing city to explore on foot with lots of history and museums and great old stone buildings. The sun rising over the Firth of Forth is a sight to behold and the myriad of pubs and coffee shops are welcoming and warm. If you are looking for things to do in Edinburgh or what to do in Edinburgh, this may be for you. It's basically a free walking tour without the monologue. There many great free tour edimburgo if you want. Check out our blog at https://travelingmel.com for great info. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/CityWalks Paypal Donation: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/CityWalks Let me know if you prefer talking or if I should stay silent. Keezy Walks is another great walks channel. --- - - This is a walking treadmill video and treadmill trails project. Treadmill walking videos are a great way to see the world from your home. Virtual treadmill walks and treadmill virtual scenery are great treadmill video options. For more walking tours of Edinburgh see "EDINBURGH A walking tour around the city / EDIMBURGO Un paseo por la ciudad" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2GiRr7jGuc and " 3 Perfect Days: Edinburgh" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAArOlDH0Ac and "WALKING AROUND IN A FAIRYTALE · EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND | TRAVEL VLOG #69" - https://youtu.be/Y7DVQ8vR1Cs Thanks
View Video Transcript
0:02
good morning Walkers we are on top of Calton Hill in Edinburgh
0:09
Scotland on April 23rd at about seven a little after seven in the morning
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over here where the sun is rising over the first of fourth and to the right
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over here is Hollywood Park and Arthur's Peak or
0:26
Arthur's seat I'm sorry in the background and if we look off to our right
0:32
we see the city we are on Calton Hill as I might have mentioned
0:37
and we are going to walk back through the city and do a little exploring
0:44
um this pillared Monument is the National
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Monument this is an experimental project of mine
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just to see what people might be interested in since we're traveling around Europe for
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a year as a family we are going to be going to a lot of interesting places already have been
1:09
Ashley and I thought I might try and take you guys with me
1:15
this tower on the left is the Nelson Monument
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I will try to point out the things that I know and be as accurate as possible and maybe be
1:27
quiet when I don't really know
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I hope you'll subscribe I hope to do several of these we head to France next
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um and I hope you'll ask questions and make comments and help me make this a better better
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Channel I can already tell the audio might be a little wind blown
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although it's late April it's pretty brisk this morning had a great sunrise
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and and despite the riskness everything is green leaves are out
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the yellow flowers up here on the right are gorse and it's a really thorny prickly kind of
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bush but it sure is pretty it's all over Arthur's seat
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Calton Hill is apparently the seat of the Scottish government there's the new
3:09
Parliament building over here somewhere which is actually I think
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100 or 200 years old and not where the current Parliament meets there's the St Andrews house which
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is a part of the bureaucracy government offices
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it's hard for me to keep my attention on the phone make sure
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my exposure is okay
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foreign
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try to find a happy medium this is Saint Andrews house over here to
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the left
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which is impressive
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it also has a distinctly fascist look to my eye
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um it opened the day after the beginning of World War II
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laughs so we are going to go down Waterloo place
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to the National Scottish Museum
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of art or portrait Museum I can't remember what it's called but we're going to pass on our left a big
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dark soot stained Monument to the Scots
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it's pretty nice being out this time of morning later in the day it just gets wall-to-wall people here
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this is a UNESCO world heritage site the pretty much the entire city
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and it is very popular with tourists like myself
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there are lots of old Alleyways and a lot of stone
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buildings and narrow narrow places it's really kind of neat
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foreign
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statue on the right is to Willington at least that's what it says on there
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to the left we can see the uh High Street the buildings on this side
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of High Street the Royal mile
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coming up here is the Scott Monument
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[Music] and also between the Royal Mile and us
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down in that Valley is the train station wave early train station
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foreign
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walking here look right and then look left
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[Music]
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well maybe that's a monument to Sir Walter Scott
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or something now
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off over here is the castle Edinburgh Castle
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and we're gonna walk up to that a little bit later but we're not going to go in
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because it costs money
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and over here is the art museum
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it's got some really impressive work in there also not gonna go in there it doesn't open till 10 I think but
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it is free which is nice the National Gallery um
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and they've got the guys and El grecos and a bunch of other
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really impressive works of art and impressive artists
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thank you
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we're gonna go over here and take a look down here where the train tracks come
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Waverly station and you have these lovely Gardens
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Park areas
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Let's uh head up towards the Royal mile
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foreign
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so
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okay I'm gonna need a coffee soon
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so I'm gonna go up this way
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we really are here at a great time of year the flowers are absolutely amazing
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foreign
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trash is a city
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this bar on the Corner Pub
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is Deacon Brody's Tavern and Deacon Brody apparently
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it wasn't in better gambler who ended up
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becoming a bit of a thief and a murder to fund his gambling
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and on whom Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was apparently
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based on Robert Louis Stevenson I think is who wrote that
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now we are on the Royal mile and we're headed up to Edinburgh Castle
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if I can get out of the road
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well yesterday I recorded for a long time
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hold on they are filming The Avengers one of the Avengers
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films here and we've been setting up all kinds of film
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equipment up here which is kind of neat but it's also
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a bit of a cluster
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oh
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foreign
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Edinburgh Castle doesn't look as impressive from here but
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still pretty impressive and if I've got my history correct the only time it's ever been taken by
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enemy forces enemy in quotation marks was when Robert the Bruce
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climbed up the north wall with some people
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but you should probably Google that and check my history and let me know what you think or if I'm right on that
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there's like five different museums in there it's really kind of an impressive
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and compact uh Place Building whatever
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the views are pretty cool too it's a great place to visit
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now I've got to stop for a second tie my shoe and turn off some apps so my
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battery lasts longer okay we're tied up and hopefully that'll
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make a battery last longer this is all experimental I guess I mentioned yesterday I got quite a bit done
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uh and only burned up about 10 of my battery but today I'm recording in 4k instead of 1080.
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and that may be making a difference so if we run out I apologize now off to
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the left is Arthur's seat again we saw that at the very beginning
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over there there's some green area and that I believe is The Meadows
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and then down here right in there there's a square in there called
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the grass market and that's where they used to sell cows and stuff and I believe the road through there is cold
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how Gate Road it's down that way
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to the cow gate
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the dynamic range on this phone is not great so I'm having to make a
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adjustment here between
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the sky and the buildings here's one of the dozens of lighting trucks that are
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pulled up here in The Old City at various points in time they also have a bunch of cranes with Lighting on them
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and faux lamp posts security boxes and police boxes
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it's kind of crazy the vehicles they bring up here
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narrow tiny streets wouldn't even want to come up here in a car but people are bringing up these
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giant tour buses
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rectangular taxi up to the castle if you're not as mobile as others
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[Music]
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there are a lot of wool outlets and wool
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houses here Royal mile
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okay this is really chewing through my battery I'm assuming it's at 4K that's the only
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thing that's different so I switched it back down to 1080. sorry about that
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um it's we are going down George the sixth Bridge
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there's a couple interesting things down here
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and it's still too early to get coffee it seems like almost all the coffee shops
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don't open till eight or later which seems like it's a little
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off the point
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[Music]
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[Music]
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[Music]
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[Music] foreign
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[Music] as I mentioned is a UNESCO world heritage site pretty much the whole city
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uh and at least the old part of the city and it's obviously a tourist Mecca
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but up here is one of the most touristed areas
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in Edinburgh and it has nothing to do with history it is actually has everything to do with
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Harry Potter this is the elephant house where apparently
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uh JK Rowling did a fair amount of writing although uh I'm not so sure how much she did I
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think the later books uh there's another cafe coffee house
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over by the university that she did a lot of their first writing book writing the first book because
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um I guess her brother-in-law owned the restaurant upstairs or the cafe or something I we took a walking Harry
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Potter tour which is free you tipped the guide it was great a lot of fun for the kids and us
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uh but he was that's what he was telling us and this statue up here
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is also quite visited and photographed the most photographed statue in in
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Edinburgh according to Melinda and her sources and it is great fires Bobby
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and you can Google the whole story but basically this is right outside of greyfire's Kirk
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and back in the grave robbing days um
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there was a night Watchman and he got a guard dog named Bobby
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and unfortunately the Watchman died two years after he bought his dog and the
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dog came and stayed on his grave every day and um
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the law at the time said any stray dogs had to be killed but since he was so loyal
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and so famous they made him a citizen so we'll duck back here
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just to stick our heads in gates are now the gates are open but this is the gray Friar Kirk
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and this is also where there are several names that we're not
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going to go visit you can come see the church um uh that JK Rowling used was inspired by
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including McGonagall a terrible poet renowned for being terrible and Tom
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Riddle over here is the Scottish Museum
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which has a lot of interactive things for the kids we just ducked our heads in there before a tour and we're going to
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go back but it's really impressive and the outside
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is a modern take on something
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which is I don't know it's not too bad it's gotten a lot of criticism I think but the inside
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is also it's multiple facets of this building and the inside is uh really
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spectacular and there's just it's just packed with a lot of stuff so if you do go
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get a chance to go I would highly recommend giving it several hours and there's a
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lot of tactile experiences interactive experiences for the kids
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um so [Music] there's that
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[Music]
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[Music]
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morning [Music]
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foreign [Music]
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[Music]
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take note of the red telephone boxes
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they're still around a lot of them turned into uh Wi-Fi hotspots
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and ATM machines were sold off
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so we are coming back up to the Royal mile [Music]
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and we're going to make a right find some coffee
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[Music]
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now this statue up here [Music] is
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despite my efforts convince people of the fact it's not a Brit Hume
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David Hume the philosopher up here on the right is I think it's
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Saint Giles church and you'll see a ton
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of film gear lighting stuff
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from The Avengers morning
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foreign
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a lot of these side Alleyways look a little sketchy cold
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closest this is Advocates close I assume there were lawyers down there
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but they're just little Alleyways and foot paths that lead off the main drag
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here there's dozens of them
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there is our coffee destination as every city in Europe or pretty much
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anywhere in the world seems like has multiple
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Starbucks Cafe Nero I think is a UK
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chain at least that's the first place I've seen them is here we're gonna duck in here and see if we
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can grab some coffee
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quick review of church again
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oh and this is interesting we took a walking tour a free walking tour through sandemans again it's free but you need
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to tip and apparently this used to be where they would tie up the
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Catholics or the Protestants and they throw Aggies out them for five hours
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I guess things were a little bit different back then
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anyway I'll be right back gonna grab some coffee okay I have got my coffee
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and a little bit of blood sugar and let's see what else we can see
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so seriously these closes are every
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just every few yards here's the Covenant close which seems more like a garbage
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close this is Burnett's close
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this is Belle's wind or wind
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here's the assembly close
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tour shop there's that Stephen laws close
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of course your ubiquitous Starbucks over here this is kind of a neat little
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road called cockerman Street look for that in your Avengers film
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this is kind of a fun little square down here
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and then this is a major road called North Bridge or at least that part of it
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is and that leads back over the train tracks uh
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towards the Wellington statue I believe that's way down there
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um it's a nice view in that Valley where the trade tracks run
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uh used to be the loch Nour or norlock
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and apparently it was pretty scummy and they it was sort of the open sewer
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of a city and they used to dunk witches there
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so I like to think they drained it because it got all filled up with witches
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[Music] you may hear
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uh seagulls calling every once in a while and that's because we are as you may remember from this morning we are
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actually walking straight downhill uh towards the first of fourth the first
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being a bay and fourth meaning Where the River fourth comes into the ocean
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and we are headed down towards hollyrood
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thank you
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now I keep being fooled because other cities
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these roads are basically converted into pedestrian malls but that is definitely not the
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case here and on the Royal mile and I keep wanting to walk in the middle
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of the street because it's a better View I keep
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just getting run over
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Okay so down here kind of see where we've been
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that is St Andrew's house just to the left of this building here
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see a bit of
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Kelton Hill there's the Nelson monument and of course the uh
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National Monument the pillars just right there in the center
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but back up here the way we came
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down there I mentioned calgate earlier I believe that is or that's calgate Road I'm not sure if
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that's the actual cow gate down there it's where they used to bring the cattle in
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to the grass Market to sell grass Market was also the place where
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they had the public hangings like you do
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let's see if I can fix exposure a little bit better
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across the street because I think
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get a better View down here
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I'm just going to let the sky blow out so we can see the buildings
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[Music]
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[Music] well that sign over there
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says Cannon gate on the Royal mile
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so I don't know if that was [Music] uh the gate for cannons or
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the uh [Music] they built a wall three meter no seven
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meter seven meter tall wall around the city I think in the 1500s after
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the Battle of flooding and I think it's called the flooding wall of the flooding something or there
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um as a because the English were marching northwards to
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take the city [Music]
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standard UK greeting seems to be higher [Music]
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so I say hi yeah so people don't know I'm not Scottish [Music]
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now this is the what is that that's the tollbooth gate
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um or the toll gate hold on
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I kind of like it because [Music] it's like something out of a
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Warner Brothers Studio Tour something I mean this is what Harry Potter stuff Hogwarts stuff looks like right
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but it's uh to the best of my knowledge that is people architecture at its best
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and quite frankly Edinburgh is full of that kind of stuff a lot of
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Old Stone Construction it's just massive and kind of cold
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looking but strange because the Scottish people are so nice and so friendly on the whole
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this church is amazing not because of the church but because of these trees
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they're just gorgeous and full of color
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[Music]
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[Music]
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foreign
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[Music]
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[Music]
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Palace and Abby remains of the Abbey I guess as well as the current Scottish
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Parliament which has this very modern architecture which is
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pretty interesting
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[Music] and there's a lot of there are a lot of
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questions we had to look this up what the Scottish Parliament actually has
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a sovereignty over or jurisdiction over I think it's like education and
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it's like three or four things education police something else
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but Hollywood I guess is the Royal residence in Scotland
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butts up to a giant green space which is beautiful
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and it's right next to I think it's Hollywood Park where Arthur's seat is
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which again we saw at the beginning
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see how close we can get up to this is the uh the wall on the right I don't know if I've been showing it but
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of of the Parliament building and it's very creatively done
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or what I assume is a blast wall um
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[Music] off to the left are some of the gardens [Music]
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I'm gonna go up here and see how close I can get
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or at least close enough to show
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the palace here
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morning
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can I see despite the sun there
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above in front I guess the yellow gorse is the Crags area which is I guess west of
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Arthur's seat which we'll see in a moment [Music]
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duck over here and uh
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it's kind of like these pools that are all out in front of the parliament buildings a nice little Park
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very calming guess that's appropriate for Parliament
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I'm gonna cross over
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lots of flowers Out In Bloom right now
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[Music] Garden here I think they actually serve
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tea and such in there Hollywood Palace
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pay to get in but nevertheless
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[Music]
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all right [Music]
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sorry to tell with this lens but those cracks are pretty tall
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if you can make out people walking just above the course there's a trail just a flash up there
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um and that's not even as tall as Arthur's seat
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which isn't that tall but it's deep you can see some people up there
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foreign
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[Music]
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[Music] go over
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show y'all are their seat and call it that's pretty good performance I think we'll see how the
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video looks [Music]
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good flowers
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[Music]
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oh I think from here we need one hour [Music]
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I'm so quiet [Music]
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I'm trying to get my exposure down a little bit
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up I guess [Music]
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it's a beautiful evening [Music]
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foreign [Music]
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so off to the right up here here's a valley you know to the left of that Valley
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I don't know if you can really see it but right about there's an old ruin of some sort
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and off to the right we'll see Arthur's seat in just a moment
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[Music]
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because
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there you see it just over this Ridge line right in there [Music]
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I don't know if you can make out the people up there it's about 30 people [Music]
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and it's a bit of a scramble to get up there good path but
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steep you also gotta be it's really kind of cool that they have this
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giant Park [Music] it's really wild
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as well as you can expect in a major city and you can climb all over it
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I guess we'll go up here to the pond since it's just up here
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over to the left is a giant open space as well and then
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over there is the Hollywood Palace that Tower up on the hill is Kelton Hill
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where we started [Music]
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there are a lot of joggers in this park and they all seem to run really fast
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[Music]
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a guy over there doing burpees which of course it's a terrible idea
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because they're horrible and that's the ruin
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I have to look that up go over here to the pond
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the lock
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I think we're gonna come out about [Music] is it 35 or 40 minutes on this
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I think I had about 30 35 on the phone full charge on the gimbal battery
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Lord knows how many uh getting some videos taken out on the
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phone I guess it doesn't really matter
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[Music]
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well it's coming out a little bit [Music]
1:00:34
it's about a dozen or so swans that live here I guess they live here
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not supposed to feed them but I think they get fed anyway [Music]
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it's just nice in here [Music] the light the clouds
1:00:49
the gorse The Greenery the birds and it's quiet in the middle of the
1:00:56
giant City now that we've gotten away from the major crowds
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there's a heron too look at that see what we can see over here about
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these swans [Music] oh
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a couple of scop and there's the mallards [Music]
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[Music] all right well
1:01:56
that's not a bad place for time lapse either holy crap
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well uh
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