Last week I presented our trip through the fabulous Falkirk Wheel. Now we continue on towards Edinburgh!

After riding the Wheel up about 80 feet, you motor along an elevated modernistic aqueduct for a few hundred yards, then make a right turn and enter a tunnel, lit up with colour (We’re in the UK.)

After the tunnel, there are two locks to take you to the level of the Union Canal. Leaving the top lock, you are greeted by a Welcome to the Union Canal sign.

Before long, another tunnel looms ahead. This one is especially interesting… The Forbes family, who owned the large Callendar estate nearby, were convinced that a canal and locks would spoil the view from their land. They petitioned members of Parliament and in 1822 won – meaning the canal builders had to make a tunnel under their land! The tunnel is over 2,000 feet, or about a fifth of a mile long, chiseled out of solid rock. Most of the interior has been lined with brick, but it seems they got tired and part of it is just rock.

The towpath runs alongside the canal through the tunnel, with a nice railing so hikers don’t become swimmers. There were some bikers zooming along, and passing us rather quickly! Cherryl took what’s basically at time exposure of a biker speeding past us:

Cherryl and I both took lots of pictures, and I have blended them together for this blog… in pretty much the order of the trip. But not necessarily…

Sometimes we met oncoming boats…

Sometimes we passed moored boats.

Sometimes Cherryl piloted our narrowboat…

And we went under LOTS of bridges. They are all numbered, and with our nice map, we could easily prove right where we were. The first bridge we came to was #63 – we putted along towards Edinburgh and stopped at #15. So that’s 48 bridges, or 96 since we retraced our route to get back to the starting point. Each bridge means we slow down from our racy 3-4 mph to maybe 1.5 mph, because the canal width might only be a couple feet wider than our roughly 7 foot wide boat. Threading these 50 foot boats through that narrow opening – well, I’m glad they’re narrowboats!

Our boat was named the “Cactus Wren,” which meant something to us: we looked hard to find our first Cactus Wrens in Arizona a few years back. The boat is a Wren class, which means the builder created a lot of this size, format, etc., and calls this model the Wren. Then the owner can name it as he wants, and in this case the boat hire company named all their Wren class boats after actual birds.

A narrowboat is used somewhat like a motorhome, in that you move when you want and can stop basically where you want, too. Some places are easy to just moor up on the side of the canal, some would not be safe, some not easy. And some gorgeous! One such stop was at Linlithgow, Scotland. The cathedral is old and fascinating, and the palace behind it even more so!

I don’t know the history of Scottish monarchs near well enough, but this site was first occupied by the Romans, then king David I, in 1124 – 1153. Edward I (from England) invaded Scotland in 1296, and in 1302 built a royal residence here. In 1424 James I started work on what is now the palace. It has been added onto over the centuries that followed… but much of the original stonework is there.

First, a few pictures of the area where we moored in Linlithgow.

The beehive shaped thing is a Dove Cote, or Doocot as the Scottish would say. They would raise doves in huge doocots, (this one had 340 some nesting holes inside) and use the birds for food in the winter, and their droppings for fertilizer. The nitrate in the droppings was also used for gunpowder.

Some boats were even narrower than ours!

The graveyard in the church had markers dating to the 1700’s!

I put these organ photos in for Joe. You know who you are…

Near the entry, there are grooves in the corner, where soldiers sharpened their swords on the stone! There are also three large holes, and some smaller ones, where they supposedly tested their muskets. Amazing.

Now to the courtyard of the palace. An ornate “Crossed Well” was built in 1628, but destroyed when Oliver Cromwell occupied the area. It was rebuilt to be an accurate copy of the original… in 1807.

Most of the staircases are open to those who buy admission tickets, and I love to climb towers…

So here’s a shot of the crossed well from a bit higher up.

The view from the top is gorgeous!

Cherryl shot this picture of me at the top of the highest tower! See if you can find me! It was a little intimidating thinking that the stonework I was climbing on was 500 or 600 years old!

Our boat is just out of the picture to the left…

We passed many fields of Rapeseed. The sweet fragrance was almost overpowering! I think it is mainly used for vegetable oil, like canola oil.

Many bridges looked similar, but all were different. But all were narrow!

We spent a night in the Winchburgh Marina. Being early season, it was almost empty.

We did meet another couple there, and of course we each ask where the other is from. This gentleman went to school in Lincoln, Nebraska! He lived there while his father was working in the States. How crazy to find a Nebraskan (of sorts) in the middle of Scotland! Here they are leaving the next morning:

A tiny shop had great food for our lunch!

This old barge has seen better days…

We were told that the “Happy/Sad” bridge has these faces carved on each side because on the Glad side, they had finished the “easy” part of the canal, and on the other side, they would have a lot of harder work. Hence the sad face…

We were definitely not expecting the COLD! We thought we’d brought too much stuff already, with trying to dress for the trans-Atlantic cruise and then time on the narrowboats, but the cold convinced us to buy more warm clothes! And another duffel bag to get all the stuff home! We wore four or five layers for several days. It was made a bit more challenging because we were told it’s not polite to run the engine between 8 pm and 8 am… and the heater shouldn’t be run without the engine going or you could “Flat” your batteries. Our new friends at the Winchburgh marina told us we could run the heater safely anytime, and that made it a bit nicer. We felt like this is winter tent camping – on the water!

The Lin’s Mill aqueduct was built in 1822, and takes you over the River Almond at a hight of about 75 feet.

At the other end of the aqueduct, I climbed down the steps to see if I could get a picture of the arched structure.

This was about all I could see through the trees!

We decided not to go into Edinburgh downtown area, so stopped in a “suburb” called Ratho. Then back the way we came. Here’s a closer shot of the Doocot in Linlithgow.

On many bridges, especially when they are on a curve in the canal, you can see grooves worn in the stone from the horse’s ropes pulling the canal boats back in the day. Two good examples are below.

Then it is back to the locks and through the Falkirk Wheel again!

Here’s the elevated chute, or modern aqueduct, leading to the wheel.

The wheel has basins big enough for two boats at a time. On both of our trips through the wheel, we rode alongside a tour boat. These are for folks to ride up the wheel, through the tunnel, then back again.

Here you can see the water tight barriers that seal the ends of the basins the boats sit in. From left to right you see the barriers hydraulically fold down once the wheel is stopped, and letting the boats motor over them.

Once out of the wheel, it’s straight into the last lock, then around the corner to our rental marina.

Lots of people come to see the wheel in action, and watch boats (like ours) navigate the locks.

We felt a bit like celebrities, with so many taking pictures of us! This nice couple chatted with us while we were waiting our turn in the wheel. They spoke little English, and were surprised that we knew a bit of Mandarin!

Here’s a little video wrap up of the wheel and the last lock. You’ll see a bit of the views both forward and back. The video is sped up dramatically, and the sound of the boats banging against each other in the wheel is far more noticeable than in real life.

After mooring our narrowboat, we took a bus to the Helix, where the Kelpies are located.

So what’s a Kelpie? A mythological creature that could take many shapes, lived in the water, and could be helpful or naughty. Some said that they would lure you in to touch them, then your hand would stick to them, and they’d drag you underwater, drown and eat you. I assume that’s the naughty behavior.

These sculptures are a tribute to the Kelpies, but also the great Clydesdale horses that pulled canal boats between Glasgow and Edinburgh. They stand about 100 feet tall, and are build of stainless steel pieces, all irregular, and with plenty of spaces for wind to whistle through instead of trying (Kelpie like) to knock them over. To prevent them from tipping over, it is said the concrete foundations reach farther down than the horses reach into the sky!

We took a tour that let us inside the horses, and learned a lot about how they were engineered and built.

An amazing framework holds all the steel plates in place… almost 1,000 individual puzzle pieces!

Before I quit this week’s trip, I will show you a little of our narrowboat. Cherryl kindly took pictures! From left to right, the entrance at the stern, with two bunks, a hallway forward to the bathroom and shower, the galley with stove and mini microwave, and a table far forward. 48+ feet long, 6 feet 10 inches wide.

Our last night on the boat was spent at the marina, so we could return it by 9 am. The wheel was lit up so beautifully at night, we had to check it out. I couldn’t decide which picture I liked the best, so you get to see a bunch of them!

Next week more boating – in Wales!