Falkirk Wheel

I have wanted to visit the Falkirk Wheel ever since I first read about it over ten years ago, but it was only this year that I finally got to see it. The wheel is a rotating boat lift connecting the Union canal with the Forth and Clyde canal and it is quite the ingenious little engineering masterpiece and the only one of its kind in the world. After I'd been there I felt a slight disappointment, probably because I'd built it up in my own head to be this huge adrenaline kick, when in reality it's all very slow and sedate. Still, it's definitely a "been there, done that"-experience to cross off the ole' bucket list.

The wheel is a grand view.


Close up.


On the ground level, as a boat should be.


Airborne, very much not as a boat should be. Still, there was no adrenaline, no sinking feeling in the stomach, no vertigo. The whole process is so slow and deliberate you really just sit there and twiddle your thumbs.


Once 24 meters up, you go through this tunnel, turn around on the other side of it and go back down again. Not much action, considering it takes more than half an hour.


The views are quite nice, though.


View down the Forth & Clyde canal.


Just outside the Visitor Centre they had these small copies of another famous, Scottish sight: The Kelpies.