Having lived on the Big Rideau Lake for 56 years, I am a canal boater in my heart. After many winters boating in the inland waters of Florida we have explored most of the navigable rivers and canals there including the Intracoastal waterway from Jacksonville on the east side to Clearwater on the west and the Keys to Key West. The St Johns river, the Caloosahatchie, Lake Occeechobie and the St Lucie have been travelled as well.
Now that Joan is completely retired and I am being eased toward the door we began to compile our "Bucket List". One of the places we have always been facinated by is Scotland with both sides of her family having roots there and my mother's as well. Working with our friends, Liz and Dean, our dock mates at Ft Lauderdale and regular world travellers, we planned a trip that visited our ancestry and involved canal boats too.
I wanted to experience the Falkirk Wheel, a modern engineering marvel on the Union Canal as well as experience the more traditional canal life which has been going on since the early 1800s. Abandoned in 1921 with the growth in popularity of the railways, it was reserected as a millenium project to benefit tourism in 2000. Being originally a freight carrying waterway it was designed to accommodate horse drawn barges with a full length tow path which now is a walking and biking trail. Another feature is the Wheel replaced twelve original locks so once we traversed the Wheel and the two locks above it we then could cruise the entire thirty miles to Edinburgh on the same level. Our vessel was sixty eight feet long and seven feet wide and we went over a number of aquaducts over valleys, highways and rivers and through two tunnels, one over 700 metres long under the Roman Wall built as a defence to protect the civilized south from those wild highlanders in the north, and navigated by the numbers carved into the bridges we went under. There are some significant differences between this system and the Rideau Canal. We'll dive into more of that later.
On board accommodations on "Sarah" were great with two private staterooms with there own heads and showers. Complete galley and sitting area forward with a cockpit at the bow and stern helm station exposed to the weather with a tiny diesel engine and tiller steering. Maximum speed was 4 mph but we cruised at 2.5 to 3 most of the time. Our goal was to make 10 miles per day roughly, giving us two nights
in Edinburgh. Mostly, the canal was narrow with turning basins every few miles to facilitate a direction change. Our cruise plan brought us to some quaint towns each with a great pub or restaurant for our over nights so we had lunches aboard while moving and dinners ashore. Our foul weather gear came in handy as there was no cover at our stern helm and we did experience some traditional wet days while cruising. Well equipped, our vessel had central heat, satellite TV, WiFi, 240 volt inverter power to keep our personal electronics charged up. Very civilized!
To be continued....
