The Falkirk Wheel

When we went down to breakfast in the conservatory restaurant this morning, we we had to shout to be heard above the sound of the rain drumming on the roof! It was chucking down so hard that there was no point in even thinking about doing any shopping or sightseeing: we just wanted to leave Edinburgh!

Fortunately we could drive out of the city with more ease than on our arrival, and had no pointless detours around the New Town. As we drove west we could see some evidence of the promised good weather coming in. That is to say, it had at least stopped raining.

First stop was the Kelpies, which TMLHereandThere will probably blip. They seem easy enough to get to, being easily visible from the M9, but the motorway junctions are not clearly numbered ... after leaving the M9 too late at junction 7 instead of 5, we found ourselves on another motorway and in Clackmannanshire! We got off at last and asked for directions, and, about half an hour later, found Helix Park, where the equine sculptures are located. The canalside setting is beautiful, as are the 100-ft sculptures and the poem carved on the paving stones nearby. It was still cold and grey, and the visitor centre, which would have been handy for my mum, who can't walk far, is not open till next year. So TML and I tried to get shots fom every single angle but without the electricity pylons (we preferred the distant view of the Ochil hills, over which we could see the back of the new, clearer weather front emerging). I managed to join accidentally a part of the official tour, and learn that Saint Columba banished the Loch Ness KelpieMonster in 565 AD, which is why it hasn't been seen much since!

Next stop was The Falkirk Wheel
which is the world's first rotating boat lift. It transfers craft in a sealed capsule from the Forth Canal to the Clyde canal, and vice versa. It was completed in 2002, and I've seen TV programmes about it, but had never visited. We tend to stick to the West, coming up through Glasgow to Oban, avoiding 'the bits in the middle'. So I've never been to Stirling Castle, the Wallace monument, the Trossachs, or anything! Stupid, really, considering I lived so relatively nearby for about half my life.From our table in the cafe/visitor centre we could see the boats being driven into the the capsule, and the wheel rotating them up to what Tanya/TML calls 'the top shelf' (the other canal level) before being driven off. At this point, another boat gets driven on from the top shelf and rotated down to the lower level. The turning process takes about four to five minutes, and uses only 1.5 KW of electricity. Impressive beyond words. When the sun came out fully, I nipped out to stand underneath to watch the rotation.

Eventually, after also blipping the mini-Kelpie sculptures on the same site, we headed off into the West, the setting sun and Loch Lubnaig, which had extended right over the road. Then my mother wished to visit her friend, and we wanted to see his daughter whom we haven't seen for over 30 years. So we had a long, moonlit drive through Glencoe to Duror, his village which is also the one where my mother, siblings and I lived in the 1970s. We got home to an enormous cauldron of soup that Steve had kindly cooked for us, at about ten o'clock, and staggered wearily to our respective beds.