Kelpies, Canals and Castles

I have to admit, going to see giant statues of horse heads didn't immediately spring to mind when originally planning our Highland Tour. Yet here we were. 

We had a few weeks allocated to tour Scotland after we left Edinburgh, and had no real idea what to do or see. Every website extols the virtue of their own particular attractions, and we had no yardstick by which to compare options. 

So we Googled 'Scottish road trip' and went with the one that seemed to have an itinerary that covered the most ground. 

Day 1 gave 5 stops - the Kelpies, Falkirk Wheel, Bannockburn, Wallace Monument, and Stirling Castle. 

First though was a lovely extended walk with Miggy and Yoda, our fabulous hosts in Edinburgh. We can't thank you enough for the wonderful welcome and hospitality! 

Then it was off to the Kelpies. Apparently, kelpies are mythical and lethally dangerous entities that can take the form of other creatures, most commonly horses. So why would one celebrate such nasty beasties? 

Apparently the canal operators had some scruffy, disused land, so with the aid of a lottery grant developed it into a tourist attraction to make better use of the land and to create local employment. 

Yes, the first item on our list was neither historical nor scenic, instead being a deliberately manufactured mini theme park... 

Actually, it was worth the visit, and we found the canals and boats as much of an attraction as the horse heads. 

On to Stop 2 on the itinerary. 

Those who know boats will be aware that they are notoriously bad at going up and down hills, so canal water is always flat. If you'll pardon the pun, the problem arises how to lift canal boats up and down the surrounding terrain. The answer is with canal locks. 

 

Locks are famously slow and tedious, so this  canal has an ingenious solution, the Falkirk Wheel. This simply lifts the boats up and down on a rotary elevator. 

Very clever, a genuine marvel of engineering ingenuity. 

And about as tedious to watch as the locks it replaces.

So much for Stop 2. Off to Stop 3, Bannockburn. 

Bannockburn was the site of Robert the Bruce's decisive victory over the English army, and this memorial site has explanatory panels with all the details, and it was quite moving. 

What would have made it even better is if it was actually at the location of the battlefield. Apparently they are reasonably sure of the camp sites and such, just not where they actually fought this defining battle. So they just built the monument where they think it was, based on their best guess. 

On to Spot 4, the Wallace Monument, built in the 1800s to commemorate the achievements of Sir William Wallace. 

This was built within sight of Stirling Bridge, which was apparently his most famous military achievement. 

One little side note - the locals love the Braveheart movie because it put them on the map. They also are the first to tell you that it was historically inaccurate, and earned one critic's title of being The Most Historically Inaccurate Film Of All Time. When Mel Gibson was asked about it, he said the film was much more "cinematically compelling" than the historical fact.

I wonder if he's planning a sequel about Robert the Bruce at Bannockburn? 

The climb up was steep, and punctuated by really cool wooden statues marking the historical milestones of the site going back to the last ice age. 

We arrived at the peak, took some minutes to catch our breath, and then discovered they were just closing up  for the day!

Why didn't they share that wee gem of information with us at the Visitors Centre below before we started the strenuous climb?.... 

Having made the effort to climb up, we thought we'd take the scenic route down, which goes around the crag rather than a direct march down the aforementioned steep slope. And lovely it was, too. 

Did I say 'down' ? 

It transpired that the scenic route did indeed sidle around the crag, but it also finished close to the same elevation that it started near the top, basically on the other side of the Monument. 

$&$#@!!!!

That left Stop 5, Stirling Castle, which we visited the next day. Here at least there was no doubt as to it's exact location, nor to it's history as there are plenty of historical records. 

What's really cool about the site is the effort being put into restoring it. The castle ceased being a royal household and became a military barracks hundreds of years ago, and was used as such continuously up until 1964.

Since then Historic Scotland has been restoring parts back to original, while at the same time keeping other sections in their re-purposed configurations. Basically a time line from 1110 until 1964.

Well worth a visit. 

One issue kept on being stressed was the strategic importance of the Castle, because it defended the old Stirling Bridge below. That was the only way across the Forth River at the time, so if you held that you controlled access to the rest of Scotland to the north. Or more to the historic point, you kept the English out of the rest of Scotland. 

I couldn't help wondering why the English didn't simply build a second bridge a bit further along the river and out of range of the Castle's guns. The river is not very wide at that point, and gets narrower further up.

Without too much effort they could also have gone to the west a bit and simply walked round the top of the river. If Hannibal could cross the Alps in 218 BC with elephants then surely the English military had the equipment to cope with a few hills 1500 years later...