On wheels, canals, tunnels and Kelpies

On the train to Edinburgh, I dug out my cycling map of the area as I had the plan of leaving the bulk of my clobber at the train station before catching a train to Falkirk as it was a weekday and I could not expect Donald or Dominique would take time off to greet me. (I would be staying with them.) Looking at the map and listening to routine announcements, I realized that the train I was on would stop in Falkirk. I checked with a member of the train staff about the logistics of getting off the train in Falkirk. The hitch was that the platform in Falkirk was too short, so would have get the bike out of the bike space and put it in the forward vestibule of coach F for Foxtrot while the train was stopped in Stirling. This I did but it was stressful to run back and forth on the platform.

From the station in Falkirk, I found the Forth and Clyde Canal and followed it west to the Falkirk Wheel. It raises boats from the level of the Forth and Clyde Canal to that of the Union Canal. It is a brilliantly simple exercise in engineering, modern art and tourism. All three elements are at play at multiple levels.

It is also located at part of the Antonine Wall. Constructed on the orders of Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius, it was an earthen version of the more famous Hadrian’s Wall. However, for various reasons, it was abandoned in a favour of the more southerly location. Unfortunately, it was poorly signed so I wound up following the new Interchange Canal between the Forth and Clyde and the Union canals through Scotland’s second canal tunnel. At the other end, I turned East on the Union Canal’s towpath, in search of the Antonine Wall site which my maps said was close but which Google Maps couldn’t locate. I went through the first Scottish canal tunnel which a panel cheerfully described as having been worked on by Burke and Hare before they started killing people for the anatomists. The towpath was narrow enough and slippery enough that I walked the bike through.

Coming out the other side, I deduced I had missed the Antonine Wall, so I headed towards the town centre for lunch. Afterwards, I headed back towards the Wheel by road and managed to find the site. The wall and ditch isn’t hugely impressive except for the fact that it is there after nearly two thousand years. Even today, in its present, eroded form, it would slow down a horde of ravening Picts, giving the Roman Legion a better chance. Also, the fact the Romans could build it probably suggested to the wiser Picts that the Romans had a superior power of organisation.

I took the F&C canal East to the Kelpies. These massive horses’ heads are of a piece with the Falkirk wheel in their being Millennium projects and being clad in stainless steel. The Kelpies differ from the Wheel in that they don’t have an inherent practical function. I caught a train into Edinburgh. It was still too early to get to Donald and Dominique’s, so I paid a visit to Cadenhead's Whiskey Shop. There were a number of people there. While trying to make up my mind about what to buy, I overheard a clerk explaining to an American couple that Campbeltown was a well regarded whisky region with three distilleries. I couldn’t resist voicing the observation: “Yes, and two of them are owned by the same company that owns this place! But they make very good whisky!”

After some shopping both there and elsewhere, it was time to head over to the New Town to Donald and Dominique’s house. As luck would have it, Donald and their youngest daughter were just getting out of a cab as I arrived. I was made at home in their gorgeous Georgian home. I think the room they put me in has half the floor space of my condo and, with its high ceilings, the same volume! It is a grand residence.

Today, I slept in, had breakfast and lazed until a little after noon, when I bid my farewells and cranked up and over to Waverley Station to catch a fast train to London. As luck would have it, my seat was in coach F for Foxtrot in the parlance of LNER. As well, I had window looking East, so had the chance to replay in reverse my trip prior to Edinburgh.

I had supper tonight in Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese pub, as rebuilt in 1667. It has frequently by Charles Dickens, Dr. Johnson and Charles II if memory serves. And of course countless others. I ended up in a Gothic vaulted undercroft adjacent to its Wine Cellar Bar room. It was packed, as might be expected on a nice evening on a Saturday night on the first of September.