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From Ducks Spotted to Spotted Dicks Our final stop was one of Falkirk's biggest and most popular attractions, Callendar House. Seat of the local lord, host to many famous people, Outlander filming location, this spectacular manor and estate offers free admission. Well worth an hour or two to...

Duck! Ok. I think this would make an excellent 1000-piece jigsaw. Mother duck and ducklings 1 and 2. Duckling 3 just ahead. And ducklings 4 and 5, leading the way. I was reminded of The Wind in the Willows as we made our happy way along the canal. There was life everywhere if you took...

Swanning along I guess the following will be familiar to anyone who has ever piloted a barge along a canal. It was new to me, more or less, and the Wheel was certainly a first. Our boat tied up while the Govan Seagull went through the flight of two locks. Here we see that the water level has...

The far canal The view, once we reach the top and begin motoring out into the canal, is excellent. The basin and visitor centre below, Scotland spreading out all green and pleasant under a cloudless summer sky, and a range of hills blue in the distance. The view from the aqueduct itself was not...

Heh. You spotted it. My photos might not be very fine art but I’m enjoying going through them and picking out ones I like. Kind of sorry I didn’t get a decent timelapse of the wheel in operation.

There is a lot to see in that area. Falkirk as a base for exploration makes a lot of sense. Both Glasgow and Edinburgh and all the border region and many scenic areas such as Loch Lomond, Glencoe etc. are within easy daytrip reach. I hired a Jag with my son from Avis Prestige for not a huge...

Here's where the big boats fly I'd known about the Falkirk Wheel for some time. Read up on it, watched videos, looked at the Wikipedia article. When I visited Scotland in 2014 with my son and again the next year with my wife, we stopped in at the wheel, browsed the excellent souvenir shop, had...

This has long been my thinking but a couple of weeks ago I found that my 0600 to SYD was delayed due to fog. Perhaps it is something that only affects Dash-8s? I wrote about the situation here.

Bonus Kelpie images These things are pretty photogenic, inside and out. @Bundy Bear recently toured the place and produced some excellent images. I went for the quirky end of the spectrum. Well, I had fun, anyway.

Steeling Horses Mighty twins of Carnera unbridled in this kingdom between canal and forth surface to take the strain Clydesdales of the Carron rare wild maned kelpies come to harness the river carry each weary traveller Celebrate their strength Never forget a debt owed Echo the great beasts...

Might as well just call this report Ah, there's more here - right at the end: Journey to the Land of Flying Barges And some in the post immediately above. I'm pretty sure there's no more to come and that I poured out the milk in my AirBnB, though I did leave a full bottle of the too-sweet...

I should rename this narrative The Travelling Milk Disaster!

The Grand Tour I looked around the Thai restaurant in Falkirk where a couple of dozen BookCrossers from around the world were gathered, trying to remember what they had ordered three months ago, greeting people they hadn’t seen for four years, swapping smiles and books. “I’m probably the only...

I hope so. A lovely little flat, neat, tidy, clean, well-equipped. A very thoughtful host.

Falkirk, here I am! My mate Bronwyn was staying in some sort of capsule hotel in the Old Town near St Giles Cathedral, I packed up all my stuff ready for departure and went off to see if we could hook up. Coffee, she suggested by text, and nominated a place but in the end, after climbing up and...

Thanks, jb747. Interesting to find yet more things that automatic systems do and must be remembered along with everything else. I saw a diagram of the runways and it looked like they had quite a lot of room remaining for a less dramatic deceleration, going by the point where the aircraft turned...

Re CX880 evacuation: More details from the SCMP here. Suggestions that "loud bangs" were heard in the cabin, apparently the fusible plugs mentioned by @jb747. A promised report within a month. Confusion and miscommunication suggested as a cause for slide deployment with the flight crew not...

Dawn came at 0330 So far north and only a few days from the solstice, I was unprepared for sunrise. I wanted sleep damit. I rolled over and put my head down for a bit more. Today was a rest day, more or less. I had three nails to hang my day on: 1. Checkout at noon. 2. Check in to my AirBnB in...

A “man in the middle” attack, once they have your details, could simply order the seeds from the legitimate company and get them sent to you. They aren’t interested in the few dollars a packet of seeds would net them; they want to use the details for a bigger score.

Old City Once out of Edinburgh Airport, my troubles melted away. There is a tram direct to the city centre and beyond - it’s like having a tram that goes from Sydney Airport to the city along Pitt Street - connecting with various railway lines along the way for £7.50 single, £9.50 open return...