11 May: Falkirk Wheel and Culross

The first weekend of May we traveled to Norway to celebrate my grandmother's 90th birthday, the third weekend we went to Norway to celebrate my father-in-law's 70th birthday and the last weekend in May I traveled to London with my friends from university. This left only one weekend in May to travel around Scotland. This weekend we chose to see the Falkirk Wheel, Culross and Scone Palace.

Falkirk Wheel

We arrived at Falkirk Wheel on a grey and cold day, which meant few other visitors to this magnificent piece of engineering. Being an engineer myself, I love things like this.

The Falkirk Wheel  links the Union Canal with the Forth and Clyde Canal, and it is the only rotating boat lift in the world.  Historically, the two canals had been joined at Falkirk by a flight of 11 locks that stepped down across a distance of 1.5km, but these were dismantled in 1933 after years of disrepair, and thus the link was broken.

The concept of a wheel to act as a boat lift was first seriously considered as a solution for Falkirk in 1994 and this resulted in the Millennium Link project. Planners decided early on to create a dramatic 21st-century landmark structure to reconnect the canals, instead of simply recreating the historic lock flight. Designs were submitted for a boat lift to link the canals and the Falkirk Wheel design won. The Falkirk Wheel was opened by the Queen in May 2002.

How does the Falkirk Wheel work?

The Falkirk Wheel lies at the end of a reinforced concrete aqueduct that connects to the Union Canal. Boats entering the wheel's upper gondola are lowered, along with the water that they float in, to the basin below. At the same time, an equal weight rises up, lifted in the other gondola.

This works on the Archimedes principle of displacement. That is, the mass of the boat sailing into the gondola will displace an exactly proportional volume of water so that the final combination of 'boat plus water' balances the original total mass. The wheel rotates through 180° in five and a half minutes while using very little power, approximately the equivalent of boiling eight kettles of water.

The Falkirk Wheel website gives more detailed information on how the wheeel works and in the right hand column you can see a very good video which describes in a very comprehensive way how the wheel works. The boys and I did our homework, we had seen the video a couple of times before visiting the wheel because we enjoyed it so much.

The boat trip - 24 metres higher up in five minutes

Having admired the big wheel, the natural next step was to go on the boat trip that would allow us to be lifted 24 metres up to the aqueduct towards the Union Canal. The Union Canal is 11 metres higher than the aqueduct which meets the wheel, and boats must therefore pass through a pair of locks to get from the aqueduct at the top of the wheel to the Union Canal. Our boat trip did not include going through the locks, but that was not the main attraction anyway.

While our boat entered the lower gondola, were were shown a video which described how the wheel worked. With a limited number of fellow boat passengers, we got great views from our seats inside the boat.

When the gondola with our boat was lifted it was fascinating to see how the water on all sides of the boat suddenly 'stopped' at the edge of the gondola, and outside there was just air. The feeling was even stronger when we had traveled up the aqueduct and turned back again. As we were entering the second gondola, it was like sailing into a canal that suddenly disappeared into thin air in front of us, almost like being at the top of a waterfall, except without the spray at the cliffs edge.

Lots of fun for kids of all ages

At the lower half of the Falkirk Wheel there is a visitor centre and a nice green area with benches where you can sit and watch the wheel. Unfortunately the weather was too cold while we were there, but I imagine I could sit there for quite a while on a warm, sunny day. Next to the benches there was a childrens playground, where our boys played for a little while.

The best part, however, was the aqua park next to it. This was not a park with slides and the other activities you normally find in a aqua park. In this park there were different tools to lift water from one level to another, where you had to play an active part in order to achieve this. In addition to the traditional water pump, there was a pump where you cycled to generate the necessary energy, locks where you could lift a boat from one level to the other and many other things.

What fascinated me the most was the Archimedes screw, a machine historically used for transferring water from a low-lying body of water into irrigation ditches. This is, of course, a really old invention, but to me this was something new and I marveled at the creativity of the person who invented this. It's quite simple, but such a brilliant invention. In the version at Falkirk Wheel you had to run on a contraption fitted at the base of the screw. When you had been running for a little while, the water started to spill out at the top - it was great!

In my blog I only use my own pictures, but in this case I make an exception as I forgot to take a photo of it - I had too much fun playing around with it.

More fun for the boys

Next to the wheel a company was offering 10 minute rounds of 'water walkers', which are inflatable 'water-walking' balls. This is something that really appeals to kids, so both our boys wanted to have a go. After watching another lady inside one of the balls I decided it was not something I was to keen on doing. The kids are so much better at keeping their balance and managing challenges like this one. As expected, the boys had a great time!

Culross

We spent a few hours at Falkirk Wheel and with the activities next to the wheel. We even got to see a river boat going through a lock to get from the Forth and Clyde Canal to the bottom of the Falkirk Wheel, before being lifted up to continue its journey through the Union Canal. In the end I was frozen stiff and the family was dragged back to the car and we drove to see Culross, a beautifully preserved 16th- and  17th century village.

When we got to Culross, we drove through beautiful, narrow medieval streets, before finding a car park and getting out to stroll the cobbled streets of the small village. The National Trust for Scotland began restoring the village in 1932 and wandering around the streets we felt the atmosphere of ancient times had been retained in a very good way.

We arrived a little to late to be able to go inside the Culross Palace, but we did manage to see the ruins of St Mungo’s chapel, the abbey, the old monastery and the West Kirk. Equally fascinating as these buildings was the cemetery outside, with its headstones pointing in all directions. I was almost expecting the living dead to come out any moment, but I guess it was a bit too early for that, we probably should have stayed the night.

After soaking up the peaceful atmosphere of Culross, we decided to have dinner in the village. The Red Lion Inn was our only option for dinner, but this turned out to be a great option. The food was lovely and nicely presented, and the atmosphere was relaxed and laid-back. We enjoyed it so much we wanted to stay the night too. Unfortunately the Inn did not have any rooms, so we had to leave Culross and try our luck elsewhere.