And now a leap into 21st century Britain. As part of a millennium project the 230 year old Forth & Clyde Canal, which was originally built to link the Irish Sea with the North Sea, has been restored and now provides 35 miles of boating, cycling and walking opportunities for thousands of holidaymakers.
A splendid feature of the project is the is the engineering marvel, the Falkirk Wheel. My photo does not do it justice. Try Googling it.
The Wheel is the world's first and only rotating boat lift and takes the place of eleven locks to transfer a vessel from the Forth & Clyde Canal to the Union Canal. When it opened in 2002 it linked the two canals for the first time in 70 years.
The idea is that a boat (or boats) motors into the lift from the Forth & Clyde at the bottom, and another motors in from the Union Canal at the top (assuming there are boats wanting to go in both directions). The gates close behind them, the water in each gondola is equalised and the massive wheel rotates thus transferring the one boat up and the other boat down using no more energy than it takes to boil eight kettles! The trip from bottom to top takes only four minutes and the boats motor away along the connecting aqueduct to the Union Canal, grateful no doubt to have avoided a substantial number of locks.
Having decided I must have a ride in the tourist boat, Archimedes (named for obvious reasons), that does regular trips up and down, I buy my ticket and wait for the next trip. A large number of American tourists (from a cruise ship I discover later) are milling around as we line up to board.
There is a gentleman who looks for all the world like Dracula in a flowing black cape, black stockings and a ... kilt, and has a Transylvanian accent (sort of like the Count on Sesame Street). He's at the front of the queue taking tickets and when I get mixed up in all this lot he says bus 16? and whips away my ticket. No says I, and there follows a rather protracted discussion where he thinks I belong to the bus 17 group, while I try to wrestle my ticket back and get it into his head that I'm not on either bus.
Another character appears in the crowd, he looks rather like Toad of Toad Hall. Same sort of dimensions as Toad, and wearing a flowing tweed cape, a tweed deerstalker, stockings and a kilt. It turns out he's in charge of bus 17. Between them they manage to herd their charges on board with no loss of life, I've grappled my ticket back, and we're ready to go.
Our captain, Fred MacGregor, gives up a few interesting facts and figures about the Wheel: It boasted a construction staff of 1000 and cost 17.5 million pounds; we will travel 24 metres up in the air and then go through a 180 metre tunnel under the Antonine Wall, built by the Romans 20 years after Hadrian's Wall.
I've positioned myself where I can watch the massive cogs turning as we go up. It's all very smooth and quiet, and because the water around you stays in place it's rather strange to see the countryside and the people on the ground getting smaller as you travel up.
Next thing we're motoring away through the tunnel to a sharp bend in the canal where boats going on will negotiate two more locks to take them up an extra 11 metres to the Union Canal while we turn around for our journey back to base.
This state-of-the-art construction is a joy to behold as well as an marvellous engineering feat. I'm snapping away with my camera, capturing it from all directions.
Then it's on the bike for a closer look at the Roman Wall and the remains of the Roughcastle Fort.
The bus group and their eccentric guides are off in that direction too. I reach the 'wall' before them (they are old and on foot, where I'm … on a bike) and am sitting on a stile eating lunch when they arrive.
I've found it's very handy, one way and another, to tag along with a tour group, you get to hear the interesting snips of information but don't have to actually travel with them.
Dracula tells us that this wall, as we can see, is a turf wall rather than a stone wall like Hadrian's. It looks now like a rounded grassy mound running in a straight line towards the fort. Apparently by the time this fortification was constructed the Romans were loosing their enthusiasm for the far flung reaches of their empire, having more pressing problems closer to home no doubt. The forts along this wall were abandoned twenty years after construction.
We all troop off the see what's left of the fort, not much, and then they must away as their bus is waiting. Toad suggests they might like to stage a re-enactment of a storming of the fort: Bus 16 rushing up the hill shouting and hollering, Bus 17 hurling missiles at them.
Dracula who likes to be in charge and do all the talking (and get all the laughs), looks scathingly at poor Toad, the Americans just don't quite get it (possibly think he's serious) where I think it's hilarious then discover I'm the only one laughing.
They set off for their cruise ship where tonight's cocktails will be doubly welcome after all this hill climbing, and I set off for a delightful afternoon cycling along the Union Canal.
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