This will be our “last post” for this trip, and I am determined for it not to become our “lost post” like when I ran out of steam 3 years ago, so here goes (you gotta kill the hours of airtime somehow, and I do not sleep on planes annoyingly).
The day we drove towards Edinburgh we had a couple of spectacular stop-offs along the way. The first was some of my favourite public art, ever. The Kelpies (no, not wee doggies, but supposedly reminiscent of a mythical beast called a kelpie – part horse, part serpent) are monumental sculptures that I think beautifully capture the energy and movement of proud horses. You first see them from the motorway, an ear here, muzzle there but nothing quite prepares you for their size and grace. The artist, and engineers that translated the designs into stable structures have made a stunning tribute to hard working horses that helped establish this land also. Just so impressive.
After being sculpturally wowed, we headed over to Falkirk nearby to be wowed by some plain crazy engineering. Much of the UK used to be criss-crossed by a network of canals, veins of trade for the nation where barges were used to transport cargo and people. When rail became a thing, many of the canal networks fell into disuse and relatively recently there has been a revival in interest, particularly for pleasure craft (a future holiday idea Jo ?). One of the biggest problems with canals is that unless they are LEVEL all the water runs away (and they become a river) so when there is differences in height one solution is to put in stepped locks. Falkirk used to be a series of 11 locks that were needed to raise boats from the lower canal system to the one 25m higher, engineers came up with a “Ferris wheel” lock that is genius design. We watched boats enter, be sealed in a box full of water then the whole mechanism swivelled to raise one water box (gondola) and lower another in its place. We then, for shits and giggles, got aboard a barge and took the trip up and down ourselves – nifty really. Read more
