A great day out, Sue had decided to take us out to see the Falkirk Wheel and Kelpies, which we had heard of but never seen.

The day started with a short drive to Falkirk, once a thriving town which went into decline in the sixties and seventies, it is now home to arguably 2 of Scotland's biggest tourist attractions. Graham had read about the Falkirk wheel, but to see it for real and to watch it in action is excellent. The structure is the world's first and only rotating boat lift, it can take loads as heavy as 100 Elephants, takes the power of 8 kettles boiling water and takes 5 minutes to traverse 180 degrees. The two 600 Tonne gondolas each hold 500,000 litres of water, and the whole structure contains almost 15000 bolts (all of which were tightened by hand). The structure replaces a flight of normal locks to connect the Union to the Forth and Clyde canals, and enables what was a 6-7hr journey through the flight of locks to be undertaken in 5 mins.

We took the tour boat which takes you up on the wheel, a short way along the upper canal through the tunnel under the Roman Antonine wall before turning round and reversing the journey, it was well worth the experience.

From there we drove to the "Kelpies", the largest equine sculpture in the world, they were designed by Andy Scott as a tribute to the heavy horses which worked in the area before mechanisation took over. As you can see from the photos they are truly inspiring, standing some 30m tall they can be seen from many miles away, in fact we could see them quite clearly from the wheel earlier in the day.

From there Jane and Sue dropped Graham at the Wallace Monument, they having done this whilst Graham was down in England. The monument was built in the Victorian era as a tribute to William Wallace who led the Scot's in their win over the English at the battle of Stirling Bridge. Wallace was eventually captured by the English and sent to London where he was traditionally "hung, drawn and quartered" with each of the quarters being sent back to a different part of Scotland. As can be seen from the photos the view from the top is spectacular, however the 246 steps to get there is a bit daunting, but not as bad as it sounds, there are a number of exhibits at stages up the monument, so you only do approx 50 steps at a go.

For the movie goers looking at the sword of William Wallace it is possibly a bit too big for Mel Gibson to wield as he did in the movie.