Double excitement

Last day in Scotland and a chance to try out two marvels of 21st century engineering.

We rode in a canal boat on the Falkirk Wheel. This is the world's first and only rotating canal boat lift. It is based on the Principle discovered by Archimedes whereby something floating in water displaces its own weight. The wheel has two gondolas and boats float into them. Because the weight is balanced it takes just the electricity needed to boil 8 kettles to lift 250 tons of water and boat 75 feet into the air where it moves out into the higher level canal.
The Wheel replaced a staircase of 11 locks which had been dismantled in 1933. Each gondola holds half a million gallons of water.

The second wonder was the new Forth Road Bridge which we drove across on our way to the Wheel. It has just opened and is very beautiful as well as being a marvel. It uses 23,000 miles of cable.

See extras.