Day 4: Let’s go cruising

29/07/2021

Both the kids, slept much better through the night, both waking up around 05:00. Fingers crossed she hasn’t finished adjusting to the time zone change yet. 

Liam headed out for his first drive in search of a pair of baby/toddler car seats. Now with the car and car seats we were free to explore.

After finding somewhere to charge the plug-in hybrid off we went on our first adventure out of Glasgow.

On the drive out of Glasgow we had to get used to mph. Although on the freeways people seemed to only take this as loose guidance.

We arrived at Falkirk, our first stop was The Kelpies.

The Kelpies are 30 metre tall horse head sculptures, designed by sculptor Andy Scott and opened in 2014. Built from stainless steel cladding they took only five months to construct. The Kelpies name reflected the mythological transforming beasts possessing the strength and endurance of ten horses; a quality that is analogous with the transformational change and endurance of Scotland’s inland waterways.

It is currently school holidays so it was very busy and a long walk from the car park. Eloise was very excited when she first saw The Kelpies, bouncing higher and higher as we got closer.

A short trip across town and we were at Falkirk Wheel.

The Falkirk wheel is a rotating boat lift, connecting the Forth and Clyde Canal with the Union Canal. It was opened in 2002. The wheel has an overall diameter of 35m, designed to look like a Celtic-inspired double-headed axe. Rotating two diametrically opposed water-filled caissons with a capacity of 250,000 litres. It takes 22.5 kilowatts (30.2 hp) to power ten hydraulic motors, which consume 1.5 kilowatt-hours (5,100 BTU) per half-turn

We will leave the engineering talk at that… Liam was impressed. 

It was truly incredible to see in action. Eloise really wanted to go on one of the boats, but sadly they were all booked out (school holidays). We told her we would return when we have some Aussie visitors. Believe it or not, it was actually very sunny, so we rushed off before we got sunburnt. We had completely lost track of time as the sun doesn’t seem to ever set this time of year.