Yesterday we took an outing with the International Family Network to the Falkirk Wheel and Stirling. About an hour before we were going to start walking to campus to catch the bus, we heard a noise that caught our attention. drip...drip...drip. I looked around and saw water leaking through our ceiling via the door frame that connects the hall and living room. Quickly I grabbed a bucket and towels to catch the water and ran upstairs to see what was going on. I found out that we were only receiving the overflow of their joy as the problematic leak was in the shower in the flat above theirs! The best part is that I called the property management company and they pretty much said that since it was stopped they would send someone on Monday. Thus, water type 1.
The Falkirk Wheel is the only rotating boat lift in the world. It's quite a feat of engineering connecting two waterways. The Romans had built a system of 11 locks on or near the current site and ruins of part of the wall were still there. See http://www.thefalkirkwheel.co.uk/ for the info. We boarded the tour boat with our fellow travellers and drove into the lift (gondola). The wheel can hold up to 600 tonnes, or something like that. It takes 4 minutes to rotate from the bottom to the top, 35 meters above. It then takes a few minutes to stabilize the water between the gondola and the river and to ensure that the arm is locked properly. Amazingly, for 1/2 turn, it takes only 1.5 kWh of electricity (equivalent to boiling 8 kettles of water). You go a little down the river, turn around, and then go back down. It's a pretty cool thing to do once...water type 2.
Next we went on to Stirling town. There is a tremendous amount of history here from William Wallace (Braveheart) to Robert the Bruce to Mary Queen of Scots. The Bannockburn battlefield is nearby where the actual battle from Braveheart occurred. The Stirling Castle is in a fantastic location and was visited by or lived in by the names above. The Castle was beat up over the centuries by Jacobite rebellions and other things, so it's being restored. It's quite different than Edinburgh Castle in that they're restoring everything to look like it did centuries ago, but very little from the original is left. There are a ton of other historic sites including the Old Town Jail, Church of the Holy Rude (see picture), William Wallace Memorial, and Argyls Lodging. However, with the combination of only having 3 hours for touring and uncooperative weather (very cold, wind, and rain...water type 3), we only scratched the surface of what was there. Overall, it was a fun trip, though we got quite wet. We were glad to get home and take off wet clothes and get warm.
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