Falkirk Wheel

Since it was a lovely day Fiona, Ciaran and I headed out to the Falkirk Wheel. Ciaran and I hadn't been for a while and Fiona had never been there. As the wheel joins two canals, be decided to bring the bike with us and get some miles in on the level paths.

The wheel is pretty amazing (even from a non technical geeky point of view). Originally, a series of 11 locks were required to get traffic from one canal across the 35m height difference to the other, a process that would take most of the day. Now, the wheel will do it in about 4 minutes (well only the first 24 metres), for little power use.
Traffic from the Forth & Clyde canal come into the basin via a lock. They then enter the gondola which will then close, sealing the boat and its water in. At the same time the upper gondola has its own boat or is simply full of water. The clever bit is that provided the water level in both gondolas remain equal, the weight in both are equal. (Archimede's Principle).Power is applied to simply push the two balanced gondolas around. Once at the top the gondola hatch open and the boat sails out onto the viaduct. This is still 11m lower than the Union canal due to the Antonine Wall, a Roman wall built to keep the Scots away from the soft Italians.
To avoid the wall the canal goes under it and the adjacent railway line and opens into a pond where two of the original locks had been moved to, allowing access to the Union canal.

We had a pleasant cruise on the canal with a trip up and luckily back down again on the wheel. Despite it being such a tourist attraction, that was never in the original plan. use of the waterways has been increasing over the years and when the Millennium Commission asked for proposals for improving the use of the canals, reconnecting the 2 canals was suggested.

After our little boat trip and our lunch, we collected our bikes and headed along to the Union canal (so we climbed at least 35m) and then headed towards Polmont. There was a reason why we chose the Union Canal - its a contour canal so, apart from the 2 locks at the end of the wheel,  it should be totally flat.
Off we headed and it was totally flat, but was flat by cheating. One bit which it should have gone over or around, it went through, leading us into the 630m Falkirk Tunnel.

 This was dark, wet and slippery, and we took the advice about dismounting, despite the handrail. We hadn't gone too far on the other side of the tunnel when we realised how late it was getting, considering that we still had more than an hours drive home after we got back to the car.
By the time we got back to the tea room we were pleasantly tired so we soon packed the car and headed home.
All in all a great day but only 12miles cycled. I will need to get my distances up in time for Maggies next year.