What I did on my summer vacation

[Panache]

Steve,

I am enjoying your travelogue very much

Keep on posting the pictures and stories!

Cheers

Jamie

[The Wizard of BC]

On Tuesday we got in the car and went exploring.

You've seen stuff so far but this set of pictures is the REALLY IMPORTANT part of our visit.

As many of you know I'm an Engineer. So what does and Engineer do when he visits Scotland? He visits the Falkirk Wheel!

Some background.....
Scotland has some boat canals that were built around the time of Queen Victoria to move stuff around before roads and lorries.
Well sometimes hills and valleys get in the way. So what do you do? You build locks to move boats up and down.

In this place the drop from one canal to another is 110 feet. The system of 17 locks would take a boat 24 hours to pass through all of them.

A few years ago a brilliant idea was presented. A boat elevator. This is the world's first rotating boat lift. I have known about the Falkirk Wheel since it was built and watched it through their webcam so of course I had to see it for real.

Here is what a boat canal looks like



Here you can see the Wheel from the lower canal.



the upper canal is behind that hill you see in the background.

Here you can see the Wheel head on. The upper canal is reached by a tunnel through the hill. Boats come through the tunnel and onto the aquaduct to the Wheel. They then enter the upper arm of the Wheel.



here's a canal boat getting positioned to enter the wheel.



Now it's tucked neatly into the gondola.



And then the magic happens.

[The Wizard of BC]

Here I am sitting up on the hill about half way up the difference between the lower canal and the upper one. and you can see the boat in the lower gondola.





Then the entire Wheel rotates.



Further



And further around.



Until the gondola with the boat is aligned with the upper aquaduct and the boat can exit the wheel and pass through to the tunnel and upper canal.



This thing is huge. See the little dots on the sidewalk above? Those are people!

here is what the Wheel looks like close up.



Each Gondola can actually carry two boats. That's two boats going up and two boats coming down.

here are some more close-ups.





I was so excited to finally see the Falkirk Wheel in person I almost peed myself when it rotated.
OK, Engineers can get excited by the strangest things.

[KFCarter]

Steve, the Travel Channel has nothing on you!

Seriously.

Great pictures, great commentary... especially love the shots of the Falkirk Wheel. Ingenious!!

Ken
:ootd:

[vmac3205]

Jamie,I once had a VW pickup (remember the 6 passengers cab with the box that both sides and the end gate all folded down? Probably before your time, kid) that had such a loose gear box that I could shift all the gears with my foot, and it would go from 2nd to
4th in one easy step.

[Rex_Tremende]

'Round about 1980, I spent roughly two weeks touring the inland canals of England on a long boat. I cranked many locks open and closed. This elevator is AMAZING to see. It is impressive indeed!

Regards,
Rex.

[ghostlight]

The Falkirk Wheel has to be one of the coolest things I've seen. Hopefully I'll get to see it in person one day. Do you think they'd let us take it apart so we can see how it all works?

Thanks very much for posting so many great pictures of your trip!

[The Wizard of BC]

The really neat thing about the Falkirk Wheel is that because you can alter the amount of water in the gondolas to make them weight the same. This means that both arms are balanced. The amount of power to rotate the Wheel is minimal.
In fact it's all done with Hydraulics powered by two electric motors each using less electicity than a single refrigerator uses in one day.

[JSFMACLJR]

Wow, Steve, that's spectacular! And I thought the Peterborough Lift Lock was cool.

[The Wizard of BC]

OK, Bobbie and I leave Sterling and begin our trip south. On the way we stop off to see Nick Fiddes of ScotWeb.
In case you don't know Nick was the first person to put Highland Wear on the web. He generously met us at his company headquarters and gave us a tour of the facility.

Here are Nick and I.




We then continued South with a short detour to see Rosslyn Chapel.
I've known about the Chapel almost all of my life. Now, before anyone gets any ideas I don't believe that Rosslyn is anything other than an old chapel where the owner allowed the builders to have free rein to make it as fancy and decorative as they wanted. But it is pretty and featured in "The DaVinci Code" which was commemorated with the Rosslyn/DaVinci Code Tartan. So we went to see it.


If you don't know, the Chapel was covered with a free standing awning a few years ago to keep rain off and allow the stones to dry out.
(The scenes in the movie showing the chapel without the awning were of a model)



You are not allowed to take photos inside the chapel so you will have to make do with these shots I took of the exterior by climbing up under the awning.







Bobbie and I then took a short walk down towards the castle ruin about a mile away.

You may remember this place as the location of one of the final scenes in the movie.



I'm standing where Tom Hanks stood as he talked to Sophie about her being the descendant of Jesus.



And Bobbie couldn't resist sticking her foot in the water to see if she could walk on it.



But hey, where's the water? It seems Hollywood strikes again. For the movie they built a little dam and filled it with water just for the movie.
Too bad, I'll bet she could have done it.


As we walked back up the hill towards the Chapel what do you think we found but this Rose growing right out between the rocks of the wall.



I don't know what you believe about Rosslyn but this was a bit spooky.


And what do you think we found growing in the opposite wall in almost exactly the same place but this Dandalion.



It just goes to prove that an X Marker can survive anywhere.



And then just a few steps further along were the roots of a tree.



Can you see the boar's head?