The Falkirk Wheel

Today's the day ............................... to lift up

I got a huge tick on my bucket list today because we went to see The Falkirk Wheel on our way home from the Trossachs.

And it didn't disappoint either - it was even more dramatic-looking than I had hoped it would be.  It's such an ingeniously simple thing - designed to raise or lower boats between the Union Canal and, 25 metres below, the Forth & Clyde Canal.  But it does it with such style, combining art and engineering to make an eye-catching moving sculpture.

Using a series of hydraulic motors, the Wheel rotates to bring one gondola up as the other goes down.  Each gondola contains exactly the same amount of water and the Wheel is so finely balanced that it needs only a few pence of electricity to complete a half turn. The really clever bit though is that there is another bit of ingenious engineering that ensures that the gondolas - and the boats that are floating in them - always remain level throughout the turning cycle.

It was fascinating to watch it in action.  Incredibly, it takes less than five minutes to lift up a boat.  This compares with virtually a full day for boats and their owners to negotiate the Wheel's predecessor, a flight of 11 locks abandoned in 1933 and now buried beneath the streets of Falkirk .......................