What I did on my summer vacation

[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.