Before venturing further north into Scotland, we took a brief stopover in Edinburgh. The holiday park we chose to camp at had a couple of lovely trails nearby that featured some impressive views, so we took full advantage of them. One trail followed along an aqueduct, and the other led to the top of a hill that overlooked Edinburgh’s city center. We also paid a visit to the largest climbing gym we have ever encountered!
Then, on our first day out of Edinburgh we visited the Falkirk Wheel. The Falkirk wheel is the only rotating boat lift of its kind in the World, and allows canal boats to travel between Edinburgh and Glasgow. With a design inspired to resemble a double headed Celtic axe, the wheel raises (or lowers) boats 79 feet, linking the Forth and Clyde Canal with the Union Canal. Quite the engineering marvel!
Edinburgh Castle from Greyfriars Kirkyard
Overlooking the Edinburgh City Center, and lots of scotch broom, from the Braid Hill Summit
Evening walk from our camp to the Almond Aqueduct
A bridge over a ‘feeder’ canal which empties into the Union Canal
The Union Canal flowing over the Almond Aqueduct
Water falling from the Union Canal into the River Almond
Sunset over the River Almond
Inside the Edinburgh International Climbing Arena
Some of the walls are over 80 feet tall!
Selfie from the top of one of the taller routes
The Falkirk Wheel, with a canal boat entering the lower ‘gondola’
The wheel requires surprising little power to turn because the opposing gondolas are always equally weighted
Full view of the wheel in mid rotation, with the visitor center on the right
Each gondola can hold up to four 66 foot long canal boats
It takes just over 4 minutes to complete a full rotation
View of the entrance from a canal boat’s perspective
The wheel was opened on May 24 of 2002 by Queen Elizabeth ll as part of her Golden Jubilee celebrations
We’ll say it again … it’s quite the engineering marvel!
Lastly, we’ll leave you with a photo of a sunset over the River Almond : )
Wow. ❤️🌈👍
We did want to take a ride on the Wheel, but the Puffin doesn’t float like a narrow boat! 😔🚐🛶
As I’m looking at your blog, Rick Steves is on TV in Scotland stopping at Iona, Staffa’s Puffin colony, Isle of Skye, Trotternish Peninsula & sailing to Orkney.
Ooo, all lovely spots! We spent some time on Skye, especially at the Trotternish Peninsula, and it was beautiful! We were able to easily see some of the Orkneys from the northern most shores of the Scottish mainland. Looked very interesting, but we were not able to catch a car ferry over.
Now that is a part of Edinburgh we did not see….beautiful! And the Falkirk Wheel, pretty amazing. Glad things are going well!
Hey Paul! Yes, so far so good with our travels … and yes, Scotland is definitely beautiful! We’re currently traveling through some of the places you and Mona talked about last time we saw you : )
Good grief!!!! That was some amazing stuff in this blog . The genius of the canal wheel and that climbing center is most impressive! And the hair cut works too. Keep the photos and history and details coming- I am loving it all ❤️
Hi Mom!! So happy you’re enjoying it!! We’ll definitely keep the updates coming 😊
I’ll call you in a few days too … just to keep you up to date on where we are now, as we’ve gotten a bit behind on our posts again!
♥️
Yep. Ditto. Beautiful.
Seeing your walkabout helps to ease, to no small degree, stress levels by seeing the amazing capacity to create, both in the Natural world and humankind.
ON-ON
Nicely phrased old friend. Traveling is definitely the best therapy I know of … tho it does come with its own forms of stress and challenge.
Regardless, onwards is never a bad direction to point oneself 😁
That is possibly the creepiest castle I’ve seen And to think old Humphrey lives in it. Nightmares for me for sure! Nice blue sky that day. Hope to see more of that. All good here and SA Think of you both everyday 🤗❤️❤️
Plus, the place is supposed to be haunted by multiple ghosts! 👻 That’s actually how we first heard about it – saw it on a ghost hunters tv show. Didn’t see any spooky activity when we were there, though.