Janice was particularly taken by a display in a shoe shop - how can anyone walk in these??
Everywhere you look there is astonishing detail to be found on the old sandstone buildings. The old ticket office for the railway station is now a coffee shop - much better than knocking it down!
After lunch - in the new shopping precinct built over the old railway station - we set off for Falkirk to see the famous Falkirk Wheel.
The Wheel is an ingenious invention to enable barges and sailing boats to traverse from the Forth and Clyde canal to the Union canal which are at significantly different levels. It replaces a series of locks which would otherwise be required to allow the boats to travel up and down between the canals.
As you can see, the construction consists of an aqueduct leading to a pair of gondolas which can be sealed, then the wheel is turned switching the gondolas between the upper and lower levels.
At the top, the sealing gates are lowered and the boats can then proceed along the aquaduct and through the tunnel. The tunnel passes through a section of Antonine's Wall which was built by the Roman Emperor Antonine to protect the southern people from the fierce Picts of the north!
The lock gates at the top are the last lifts up to the high canal, so the total lift from one to the other is now done in only three liftlocks and the wheel.
The trip back down is also interesting - especially as we near the end of the gondola and look down 150 feet to the basin below!
That was our trip to the Falkirk Wheel.
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