Journey to the Land of Flying Barges

[Skyring]

Great trip report so far, glad you seem to be getting through it all.
My sister in law is from Glasglow and this TR has put this part of the world on the list for me.

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 amount more than a regular rental and it was such fun driving around. God knows what the rates are like now, post-COVID, though.

Scotland has a lot to offer for history, scenic beauty, culture, food, and some great driving roads once you get off the motorways. One of my personal highlights was to take the ferry to Orkney and see Skara Brae, an immensely ancient settlement.

 

[Skyring]

"Movable Beasts" - very good! And fabulous photos,

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.

 

[Skyring]

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 quite as vertiginous as I'd imagined. For one thing I was in a boat with railings to hold me in, and the drop to the ground was beyond a towpath and another set of railings. Still, it was pretty bloody impressive looking out from a boat and being surrounded by scenery rather than water or a shoreline.

Even the Kelpies could be seen off in the distance as a pair of bright lumps looking out over the land, though I failed to capture them in any photograph.





They should be off to the northeast, on the right side, looking back over the aqueduct, but all I can find on my photographs is the suburb of Camelon. Falkirk itself is not too far away but hidden behind the foliage and terrain.

The end of the aqueduct is constricted into a narrow point and the boat skipper has to pay careful attention here. "This is the same width as the narrowest part of the canal further on," he says. If you can't get through here, you might as well reverse and go back down again."



Ahead of us is a wider basin with our sister boat ahead and one of the Scottish Canal tourist barges - Archimedes - waiting for us to clear the channel. They are certainly packed in inside. You have a bit of a view from the window seats but nothing like our 360º vista in the open air.



"They cram them in, six across, fifteen quid a go, all day every day," our skipper says scornfully, "and Scottish Canals still reckon they are losing money."

Looks like a gold mine to me. Ninety-six seats on a full boat at fifteen pounds each is well over a thousand quid per trip, even knocking off a bit for kids and seniors.

At the end of the basin is the entrance to a tunnel. The Roughcastle Tunnel. We're passing under the remains of one of the old Roman forts along the Antionine Wall, a lesser-known chain of fortifications well north of Hadrian's Wall.





Once out of the tunnel - and isn't it pretty for the tourists? Thanks, Scottish Canals! - we're into another wider basin. At the end of this, our boat - Barr Seagull - ties up to let Govan Seagull pass through the locks at the far end, while we get a chance to see how the process works.



Robert Barr, of course, was the man who introduced the Irn-Bru soft drink to Scotland. Reputedly made out of rusty girders from the Forth Rail Bridge, the drink is widely popular in Scotland and around the world. And rightly so.



I've seen boats go through locks before but I'm not averse to watching the process once more.


For those with sharp eyesight, the crew member is wearing Scarpa shoes. As was I.

 

[kookaburra75]

So long as we stayed on the boat, kept all our body parts within the railings, and didn't make a nuisance. we were tolerated. BookCrossers tend not to be overly rowdy, it must be said.

My line of work requires me to apply careful analysis, test any assumptions, and provide reliable results. So I thought, not knowing much about BookCrossers, I would consult the font of modern wisdom - ChatGPT.

Question: BookCrossers tend not to be overly rowdy, it must be said. - is that true?
"Answer: Since BookCrossing relies on the goodwill of participants to leave books in public spaces, they are often mindful of the locations and conditions in which they place the books. They want to ensure that the books they leave are discoverable and accessible to others, and that they remain in good condition for subsequent readers. This generally encourages a quiet and respectful approach.

However, it's important to note that individuals' behaviors can vary, and there may be exceptions to this general trend. Some BookCrossers may be more enthusiastic or vocal about their participation (my bolding), but overall, the ethos of BookCrossing promotes sharing and generosity without causing disruption or being overly rowdy."
So, there is some wiggle room in @Skyring's statement.

 

[Skyring]

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 risen almost to the height of the lower lock gate. Less than a metre to go and she will unmoor and move through the upper gate, which is also the lower gate of the next lock.

Here she is, almost ready to slip her line and move ahead through the upper gate, which can be seen partially open ahead. One detail to notice here is that the helmsman at the controls has his right hand on a tiller bar which is directly connected to the rudder hidden under the stern, below the water.



She has now moved ahead into the upper lock. The lock gates have been completely opened and swung into recesses in the lock wall. See how narrow the lock is? Remember that choke point at the end of the aqueduct we saw earlier? Now we see the reason. If the boat had gone further up the canal and tried to enter this lock at any speed, it might have wedged itself between the sides and gotten stuck.

The boat is pretty much as big as she can be and still move through the locks. Her nose is tight up against the "cill" of the upper gates and her stern is just clear of the arc the lower gates will take when they are closed. There isn't much clearance on either side; if she were broader in the beam, she might find it difficult to enter the locks in any sort of a breeze. In a moment the lower lock gates will close behind her, trapping the water in the lock chamber, and the upper gates will be opened, allowing water to flow in, raising the water level and bringing the boat up to the level of the canal ahead.

The whole system is operated by hand, pushing the lever arms of the gates around to open or shut them.



And here she is, rising in the chamber. In a few minutes, the two crewmen at her bow will push back on the big wooden lever arms, opening the upper gates and allowing the boat to move forward into the canal.



Motoring steadily along the canal. About this time the captain asked if any passengers wanted to try their hand at steering the ship. Doesn't look too difficult, does it?



A moment later I looked back and saw that the offer had been accepted.



My mate Esther, now promoted to acting third mate. She's keen. Notice that our boat doesn't have a tiller but a wheel. The grizzled ex-pirate behind her is whispering into her ear, "You are not a god," and will, if the situation demands, slam the throttle into reverse, hurl Esther into the drink, and seize the wheel, belting out "Ladies of Spain" to keep up the spirits of the crew.

Luckily this proved not to be necessary and although our progress was not a dead straight line to a distant horizon point, Esther was awarded a certificate of achievement.

I'm glad she took the helm and not I. It would've been shanties all the way home.

Here is a lovely family portrait of a mother duck and her five ducklings. I submitted it to the Facebook group cough Wildlife Photography but it wasn't good enough.



And finally the Seagull Cruises boatshed. End of the line.

 

[Skyring]

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 the time to open your eyes. A gorgeous summer day and not a care in the world.

 

[Skyring]

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 look through the place, and learn some history. Well, rather a lot of history, if one is so inclined, going back to Roman times when the Antonine Wall ran through what would later become the grounds.

The Union Canal would have followed suit but the then owner objected and an expensive tunnel and diversion had to be constructed so that His Lordship was not offended by navvies and barges and big sweaty horses.



I was never a big fan of Outlander but apparently a dramatic scene of revenge and decapitation was filmed in the kitchen.



The huge rambling mansion hosts rhetorical exhibitions, grand tea rooms, art displays and - of course - a gift shop.

I must admit I didn't get full value out of the experience. I'd had a big day, my body clock was on double daylight saving time, and we had another dinner coming up.

I think that a savvy visitor would bring along a bicycle to get around the estate, possibly even the house.

The remainder of the weekend passed in various book-related adventures. We had author talks, some of whom had Scottish dialects that must have bemused the overseas attendees. "I couldn't understand a word," one American visitor said to Alan Bissett, author and performer of The Moira Monologues, "so I treated it like opera and enjoyed the performance."

We were given the opportunity to ask questions and I stuck my hand up and said that I hadn't yet been able to get a straight answer out of any Scot but was it true that they weren't making shortbread any longer?



I especially enjoyed the talk given by William McIntyre, a lawyer who writes on the side. A brilliantly witty and atmospheric set of legal mysteries, now numbering thirteen in total, the Best Defence series is set in the area, featuring a permanently broke criminal defence lawyer, his assorted staff and relatives, and a cast of interesting criminals, one of whom is his landlord. I was able to grab a photograph and William's Wikipedia article now has a portrait.

I may have mentioned that BookCrossers are often fans of other pastimes, such as yarnbombing. At any given gathering it will be like a Venn diagram of various interests with many intersecting circles. For example, I am a BookCrosser, a geocacher, and a lissun.

A what? A lissun, being an abbreviation of List swain, as in bosun being a boatswain. This comes from the Patrick O'Brian Mailing List, originally maintained by the author's American publishers, now run by the members under the name "The Gunroom of HMS Surprise".

It is an online community reaching back to the past age, and as it happened both I and Kerstin were members of both the Gunroom and BookCrossing.

We found ourselves seated together at the Saturday night dinner. Our part of the feast was in an Italian restaurant and when it came time for dessert, a glance at the menu showed none of the customary puddings served up in a frigate of the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic wars. No boiled baby, no plum duff, no syllabub, and no spotted dick.

Oh, the horror!

My mate, being German, had no opportunity to sample such treats at home, and now that there were two of us gathered in one place where such delicacies might be obtained, it was decided that we should make an effort. Once the bill was settled, we milled across the street to Tescos where not only spotted dick was found but also custard.



From there it was but a short lurch to the Orchard hostelry - an establishment predating Napoleon - where the staff not only served us alcoholic beverages - not the first of the evening, as it happened - but found us a snug private room and were sweet talked by Kerstin into heating up our spotted dicks and custard.



And here you see two perfect little cannonballs of steamed pudding with pieces of fruit inside, slathered in Devon custard. A British peculiar of uncommon rare distinction and, well, taste.

And that's as much as I will say about the Bookcrossing convention except to say that the next day sore heads were nursed, books liberally "released into the wild" up and down the streets of Falkirk, and we had two more feasts with alcoholic beverages before I tottered home to prepare for my travel home, commencing at the crack of dawn.

Oh, all right. A few shots from the garden:







Yes, I have a thing for flowers. My heart melts. Next episode is all about trains and planes and stuff, but I'll sneak a flower in when I can.

 

[Skyring]

The first steps back homeward - boy, you've got to carry that weight!
Facing me on my return journey were four days, five flights, two long layovers, and four international borders. For some of these I'd have to carry all my luggage with me.

So. First step was careful packing. And planning.

Sunday arvo I pulled out my bags and placed them on the tables in the living area, piling up all the things I needed to take with me and deciding where I needed to stow them.

All the books and souvenirs - some sweets, a can of specialty beer, other fragile items - took over the two big Sistema boxes that had hauled my Tim-Tams to Scotland. Yes, I had eight or so packs of Tim-Tams to give away and I made sure that they were all distributed. That made for a lot of free space.

Some of it was taken up with Volume 1 of a Sanskrit dictionary. Someone had picked precisely the right book for me. I don't use it every day, but when I need it, I need it. Eight of the William McIntyre Scottish crime books. These only have a limited availability - Amazon aside - even in Falkirk and I bought a bunch direct from the author.

I had a can of beer, a bottle of local cider, a can of Irn-Bru and a bottle of milk in the fridge. I took the beer and left the rest. Either the cleaner could have them or the next guest would find a pleasant surprise along with half a bag of ground coffee and the Finnair marmalade from the Bangkok flight.

And anything I inadvertently left behind if I wasn't careful.

I spend an hour or so carefully packing everything except what I'll be wearing and will need in the morning away. I may not have my big bag in Helsinki so I'd best be prepared for HLO, but in Bangkok I'll collect my bag there and will have a change of clothes. I'm up to date with laundry - the big advantage of an AirBnB - so I allocate clothes and socks and things accordingly.

Right. My flight to Helsinki leaves at 1000. Recommended to be there two hours in advance. I'd heard enough horror stories from other attendees, quite apart from my own two-hour wait for luggage, that I added in another hour, just to be sure. So I needed to be striding through the doors at 0700.

How would transport work?

Working backwards, I find that the first tram of the day leaves the connecting station at Edinburgh Park at 0600, arriving at the airport at 0614. Until 0700, there are trams every ten minutes and the frequency increases to every seven minutes until the evening. So if I just miss a tram and have to wait ten minutes, that's ten plus fourteen equals 24 minutes. Plus some transfer time between train and tram. So long as I get to Edinburgh Park by 0630, I should be right.



Stepping backwards, what train gets me to Edinburgh Park by 0630? If I want to go direct, there's a train leaving Falkirk Grahamstown (the nearest station) at 0552, arriving at Edinburgh Park at 0617. I could also travel on to Haymarket or Waverley and pick up the tram there, but this this one looks good.

Next step(s) are in the direction of the station. I need to work out how long it will take me, and what my ticket-buying options are. Will I be able to roll my bag all the way there or will I need to annoy a cabbie or Uber with a short fare?

I step out. The station is only a few blocks away and it is five minutes basically straight up the street and over the line to get to the east-bound platform. There shouldn't be much traffic at that time. A bit of a worry is the cobblestone surface here and there. Not really rough and stony like some I've encountered, but nor is it smooth all the way. I might rattle a bit but it's mostly commercial between me and the station so I shouldn't annoy too many Falkirkers.

I ask at the station about tickets and the bloke suggests I buy one then and there. Fair enough.

So long as I'm out the AirBnB door at 0547 I should be right. Add in a few minutes fudge factor.

I set my alarm for 0500. All I need do is have a shower and shave, make my last cup of coffee, throw in the few things left unpacked and I can be off. Coffee and shower will have me set up nicely for the day of travel.

And it all works out, apart from another visit to the Orchard on Sunday evening to share a last drink or two with friends.

I walk Esther and her roommate Izzy back, give them a hug where our paths diverge and then I'm effectively a solo traveller once more.

It's kind of an empty feeling after being part of a crowd of good friends for five days.

East wind, rain
I wake to wetness. Not good. I don't want to walk five minutes even in a drizzle and begin the day damp. I have a light spray jacket, but still…

I poke my nose out in the dawn. It's daylight already, though under overcast and light rain. A big change from the preceding week of glorious sunny summer. That might be it until next June…

With a cup of coffee, I'm feeling sunnier. I check out the window and although the ground is wet, the rain has stopped for the moment. I won't need a taxi.

One final check, I drag my bag down the stairs and out the door, slot the key into the lockbox and point my nose north toward the station.

It's pretty much just me rolling my bag over the various surfaces and ridges. Just as I arrive at the station - in good time for my train - I detect some roughness in the rolling. Uh-oh. One of the wheels on my duffle is mangled. Doesn't look good. For the moment, it's still working but I may need to swap out my bag, or carry it. Somewhere north of twenty kilos; that will wear me down.

A train arrives. LNER going Glasgow to Edinburgh to London. I've checked. This one doesn't stop at Edinburgh Park. My Scotrail train will be along in a couple of minutes.

And so it is. One of the ugliest trains I've seen in a long time. Maybe it's practical with a connecting door on its nose but it looks hideous.

Nevertheless it's warm and dry and practically empty inside. A bored conductor checks my ticket and I watch the Scottish morning scroll past, with sleepy passengers boarding at the small towns on the way to Edinburgh.

Edinburgh Park itself has a couple of stations but I'm awake up to this and get off at the right one. My bag's bodgy wheel seems to have healed itself, because it is rolling smoothly along the tiles to the adjacent tram station. I have to take a lift up and over and down again to get to the far platform, but that's okay. I have plenty of time.



And, as luck would have it, a tram arrives in a few minutes. I lug my stuff aboard, dump it in a convenient location and relax for the short trip to the airport.

A conductor politely pointed out that my bags were occupying a zone reserved for wheelchairs and perhaps I might consider relocating it to a luggage rack?

I'd forgotten about the racks - too many trains and buses and trams over the past week and they were all running together in my mind - but I complied. Ten minutes later, I was alighting at Edinburgh Airport, relentlessly on time.

I'm pretty sure I tipped out that milk in the AirBnB fridge.

 

[Skyring]

In the Belly of the Beast

The trains and trams worked perfectly. Comfortable, efficient, good value. They ran on time, they got me to Edinburgh Airport well in advance of my target time; 0634, going by the timestamp on my camera.

I wasn't so sanguine about what awaited me inside Edinburgh. At least I had plenty of time to deal with any delays. I remembered one horrific instance when my wife and I had to travel to Milan via Heathrow. British Airways cancelled the flight while we were standing in line to board, made an announcement in broad Scots and by the time we worked out what was going on and where to go we were standing at the end of a two-hour long queue where BA staff processed everybody in order of arrival and not status. Fair enough if you have none but at that stage I was oneWorld Emerald and top of the tree in self-importance and I took it hard. We got sent via Frankfurt and Lufthansa; we arrived too late for the tour briefing but just in time for one of the best meals of my life at a little Italian family restaurant and I remember thinking that if every meal was that good, we'd be doing very well. As it happened, they were good, but not that good, ever again. Ah well.

Looking at the board for check-in times and desks, my flight was listed with a check-in time beginning in an hour and no desk listed. Fair enough. I was, however, stuck landside until then.

I hunted around for breakfast, and that included coffee. Starbucks - as ever - attracted me. I may no longer collect their collectible mugs, owing to running out of space at home- and tolerance from the management - to store fresh ones but I'm a fan. The coffee isn't the best but it is consistent. Their food offerings tend to be pricey but good. It was that or McDonalds.

I had nearly an hour to kill, an empty tummy, and they had USB sockets. A no-brainer, really. Besides, the workload of this trip report was really stacking up. I wanted - for once - to finish one instead of losing the will to live halfway through. Words to write, photos to edit, uploads to make.

I tucked my bags under a table, set up shop, and enjoyed a pleasant 45 minutes.

I dragged my bags into a nearby toilet and got rid of the coffee before an unknown period of standing in line. I've spent way too much time uncomfortably shifting my weight and checking my watch to get stuck with a full bladder if I can help it.

Right. Where's the Finnair check-in desk?

Nowhere obvious, that's where. I walked up and down the length of the hall looking for desk number whatever-it-was. Hmmm. Went back and checked the board - they only had one - and finally found what I was looking for in a sort of sideways cluster where some minor-league airlines were handling their passengers. Finnair only does a couple of E190s a day out of Edinburgh so hardly a major presence.



Once I'd worked out the queuing system, I queued. And queued. There was some technical problem with the luggage labels and it took half an hour and a lot of scratching of heads before they sorted it out. Eventually things got going and two hours before flight time I had two boarding passes. "You'd best take a photo of the tag," I was advised. "There have been some problems recently."

No kidding?

The big takeaway here was that my bag would be checked through to Bangkok, despite an overnight layover in Helsinki. Some airports don't keep bags that long but it meant that I wouldn't be encumbered with a big heavy bag to lug through the streets of downtown Helsinki.

Oh yeah. I'd examined my bag's wheels and they looked okay. Whatever problem I'd had looked to have vanished. Later on I discovered that the wheels had rubber tyres and I'd shed one of them. This had caused some vibration and distress in the process, but now rolled smoothly. The downside is that the wheel will eventually wear away.

LL Bean offers a lifetime guarantee on these bags but I have to ship it to Maine for replacement and from Australia that's a lot of postage. Cheaper just to buy a new one.

Another thing I had noticed was that when I retrieved my bag in Edinburgh on arrival the funky yellow luggage tag with my name and contact details had been removed. Probably an accident but it was a kind of quirky Lego tag that had lasted years already so, I dunno.

I popped a card with my details into a side pocket to join the AirTag nestling there.

Security was a bit of a bear. Not so much the check itself as the queueing system. We had to scan our boarding passes at a row of gates, and then pass through to join a queue that snaked around before a staffer directed us to a belt. Fairly basic stuff except that when the queue grew long enough - which of course it was when I arrived - people passing through the gates would find the queue directly in front of them and rather than turn left to walk around to join the end would feel they had a mandate to just move forward into whatever part of the line was in front of their chosen gate.

There were rather a lot of people doing this. I watched a lady - and her partner - do this a few spots ahead of me, and then a gent - and his partner - tried to push in in front of me.

"Fair suck of the sauce bottle, Tiger!" I snarled at him and he had the grace to move back. Joining the queue just behind me instead of going all the way to the end. No wonder it was taking so long with person after person pushing in.

Naturally I was in an evil mood after a lot of time spent on my feet by the time I pulled out all my stuff at the checkpoint.



There was a stand after the security checkpoint where I was going to mash the red sad face so hard. If only the thing had been turned on. Call me a cynic but perhaps it's only powered on if the queues are short.

Next time I'm bringing a big red Sharpie with me to register my feelings.

There was passport control as well but this time I just slid it into the gate and went through, stampless.

No gate listed for my onwards flight. I explored the airside area, found an overpriced can of drink at a Pret-a-Manger, slugged down a couple of painkillers and watched the planes come in.

Aha, there was my Finnair flight just landing. I watched it taxi to a gate and moved along so that I would be ready to board.



Here's what we're seeing above. Plane has arrived fresh out of Helsinki. Airbridge connected and pax disembarking and heading to passport control and then to the baggage claim. We see the loading/unloading belt in place, with a couple of guys inside working out the best way to handle the bags. A little tractor driven by the team leader is pulling up with a couple of baggage carts in tow.

I watched as the guys unloaded the bags with reasonable efficiency. The guy with the tractor moved the full carts off to one side, unhooked them and went off to get the carts with the bags for the onwards flight. They then proceeded to load the bags - you can see my bag in the photo below going up the belt to be slung along - and when the carts were empty they were taken off to some parking area and then the guy came back to collect the carts with the arriving passengers' bags so that they could be hefted onto the baggage claim.



The arriving bags had been sitting there on the tarmac for an hour while the passengers waited. Surely one of the three men could have spared five minutes to take them to the baggage area while the other two loaded the bags?

Now I understood why my flight arriving the previous Tuesday had had such a long wait before the bags arrived.

They called boarding shortly after and I was happy to get away from such a circus. At least I was sure my bag hadn't been left behind.

 

[Skyring]

Return to HEL

I'd been allocated seat 4D in the so-called Business cabin. Alas for my hopes, this was not a window seat and there were no free windows anyway. My seatmate, as we see above, must have spent the previous night seeing the sights of Edinburgh, because he wasn't interested in seeing any of the sparkling views outside. Oh well.

Again, not a scintillating flight but I enjoyed it a little more because I didn't have a bulkhead seat and I chose the sparkling wine this time around.



So far as I am concerned, ten in the morning is not too early for champagne - or a reasonable facsimile - and they can keep these sweet little bottles coming. Not a bad drop at all.



There's no way of knowing what's on the menu for lunch. No little souvenir menu cards, no seatback screens with the goodies listed. Nevertheless, this was not a bad meal at all.

Apart from the Brussels sprouts. Those things are only palatable, in my view if sliced in half and fried in butter. These had been boiled bitter and were only fit for rolling down the aisle like Jaffas.

Not a lot to say about this flight. I probably continued writing up my trip report. In the intervals between sips of bubbly, that is.

One thing that had been entertaining me was reading the social media postings of my BookCrossing friends as they made their ways back home. Some simply got in their cars and drove, often with a box of books beside them, others were continuing on with planned Scottish holidays, and others were travelling more widely, via London, for example, to see the sights of the UK before heading back over the Atlantic. They all felt compelled to update their progress in real time, and simply scrolling through the stored messages was a travelogue.

In due course the green landscapes of Finland appeared outside, we thumped down onto the tarmac, my seatmate roused himself for one brief shining moment, and then we were all walking across the tarmac to the terminal.

Flight 2311
Monday 19 June 2023
AY1372 EDI-HEL
OH-LKL E190
Scheduled: 1000
Boarding: 0942 Gate 11 Seat 4D
Pushback: 1003
Takeoff: 1010 to W
Landing: 1434 from NE
Gate: 1441 (stand)

 

[Skyring]

Helsinki and the midnight evening
I had a layover of 23 hours between my arrival from Edinburgh and departure to Bangkok. While this effectively added a whole day to my travel time back to Australia it also gave me a quick look at Finland. And Finland in midsummer.

The photo above shows the airport train at the central Helsinki railway station. The time is about half past ten at night and it is effectively still daylight.

I arrived at 1441 - an hour after the Bangkok flight for that day had departed, so forcing a 23 hour layover until the next flight - and this time made my way to immigration rather than transit. Finally a stamp in my passport for Finland and I could claim country number 32. I was asked my purpose for visiting Finland - transit, I replied - and asked where I was staying. "The Scandic in town", I said, and apparently the bloke knew what this was and I didn't have to pull out my booking confirmation. He stamped my passport and waved me through.

I hung around the baggage carousel for long enough to assure myself that my big yellow bag wasn't coming out and that it was (I hoped) set aside for my next flight.

I'd contemplated finding an airport hotel but discussion here had revealed that the trains into the city centre were cheap and frequent and I'd enjoy myself a lot more in the city.

I like Helsinki airport. There are all sorts of useful facilities, such as a supermarket on the way out (or in). A passenger can buy necessities without having to pay captive market rates or go without. The signs led to the railway station and when I took the escalator down, I gasped.



The escalators occupy part of an enormous void. What you see in the photo above is only half of it; there's another bank on the right heading down to the platforms below. Three elevators serve passengers who prefer a speedier and less agoraphobic experience.

I took a better photograph on my return journey but dear lord I felt rather like an ant navigating my way through this space.

The ticket machines were easy to use. Four Euro with a tap of my card and I had a paper ticket. I couldn't see a way to buy a return ticket so I assumed - rightly - that the central railway station would have similar machines offering a similar price.



Everything about Finland impresses. The interior of the train carriages were comfortable, practical, and uncluttered in design. Everything sparkling clean, everything organised, plenty of space.

I've been on some trains in some countries where the beancounters have been through and removed any trace of room. There are seats for the paying customers, access corridors pared down to the minimum, mean little luggage racks etc. etc. These trains have comfortable seats where the passengers don't get in each other's way, if you have a wheelchair or bicycle space is set aside for your needs, overhead luggage racks hold more than a briefcase…

Plenty of announcements in both Finnish and English, everything labelled and mapped and never room for uncertainty.

Scandinavia as a whole is amazingly well ordered and Finland even more so. I love it.

The main railway station is pretty big but easy to navigate. My hotel, the Scandic, was right next door. Pretty much part of the same building, actually.

More gorgeous design. Clean lines, heaps of space and light. Checkin was simple and my room easy to find.



Easily the best room of my whole trip.









I unpacked my bag, set all my devices to charging up, and retired for a nap. I had plenty of daylight to look around later on.

 

[Skyring]

Stroll around the grounds…

As it happened, my hotel room had curtains that provided an almost complete light seal, and it was well into the evening before I woke. A function of totally bollixed body clock and getting up early in Edinburgh; by now my body probably thought it was morning tea time or something.

Regardless of what time it was - about nine local - I was wanting a meal. A nice place overlooking the water, I thought, Helsinki being a harbour city, and a plate of fish and chips and a beer would hit the spot nicely.

So I walked through the fast food district around the station down to the waterfront where what looked like an impressive array of food stalls had just ceased trading. In fact, wherever I looked, it seemed like the only joints selling food were fancy restaurants, the sort you might take your wife to for a special dinner. My wife being on the far side of the planet and conscious of the lack of money left on my cards, I ploughed on.



I liked this place. A cathedral that looked like it was built to minimise surface area over volume, presumably for heating purposes when the snow piled up.

Nearly ten at night and there were people sitting in the sun like lizards soaking up the rays.



Oh well, back to the fast food precinct, being distracted along the way by various grand buildings. This one looked pretty impressive.



The sunny side of the same place looked good.

After this I was getting desperate. Back toward the station, a few less photos, a few more looks at Google Maps to find a joint selling fish and chips…

Hmmm. Some rocking joint with the police parked outside. Maybe not.

A place with good reviews. And prices to match. I'm not paying 25 Euro for fish and chips.

I remembered an Aussie-themed joint near the station. Looked like home when I strolled in.

"Got a menu?"

"Sorry, mate, the kitchen closed at ten. We can serve you a beer?"

Drat. I'd left it too late.

I looked in at a few other places before finally caving and buying a burger and chips from a street vender in the station square. The sort of place that caters to the late night drunks and is right at the end of the NOOOOOOO end of the health food spectrum.



As luck would have it and I was hunting around for a place to eat it in comfort, I passed through the station hall, past any number of food places, some of which would surely serve me a burger and beer, possibly with some vegetable input on the burger. Oh well.



I found a bench in a square full of buses and statues and hopeful gulls.

In the end I fed some of this muck to the birdlife and like vultures they soared in on the thermals from all over Finland.



Still quite light. OMG, is that the time?



Time for bed. Another big day tomorrow.



That's the hotel over on the left. Goodnight!

 

[Skyring]

Brekkie and back
During the night I rose at least once for the usual reason. Outside, pulling back the curtain, even the wee small hours of the morning were nothing darker than dusk.

I was having a lot of trouble dealing with this. Not just the fact that the sun was still hanging around at midnight but that it was quite visibly going the wrong way around the sky. That patch of bright on the horizon was moving from west to east, left to right.

Thank god for Google Maps and satnav to guide me. I've been there with paper maps and a glance at the sun and on this side of the planet my inbuilt navigation skills lead me astray.

Once I roused completely in the morning I discovered a shortfall in my toilet bag. I might have had multiple tubes of toothpaste but no toothbrush. I wasn't intending to face a long day of travel with night breath.

As it happened, not too far away was a 24-hour supermarket and not a tiny hole in the wall, neither. This was a full-sized Coles/Woolies affair and if there's one thing I like doing it's exploring supermarkets in foreign. Shave and shower - and top marks for a monsoon showerhead, Hotel Scandic! - I ventured out trusting that I wouldn't have to breathe too close to any Finns.

Naturally it took me half an hour for my shopping. Like thirty seconds to select a toothbrush and the rest of the time to poke around the aisles.
I hunted down some lollies to bring home. Some milk chocolate with embedded salty licorice and a big white block with raspberry bits. Both with appropriately exotic wrappers. And, as a good test for my dental hygiene, a bag of local licorice for myself.

I also picked up an espresso coffee from one of the cafes in the railway station foyer.

I guess that this was about 0530. Time was really meaning nothing to me by this stage. No clock made much sense.

Writing up my trip report several days in arrears didn't help with the calendar aspect either. There were complaints from home that I hadn't made it much past the first day and when I check my time stamps here, I see that I was on the verge of leaving Helsinki for the second time and my narrative hadn't even reached my first arrival yet!

Not to worry, fuelled by coffee and licorice I made steady progress until about 0730 when I checked my booking and discovered that my room rate included breakfast.



Visible from my courtyard window was the restaurant, including an outdoor dining area that probably didn't see much use most of the year but was looking mighty good right now.



Nobody was checking credentials at the door; just walk in and help yourself.



A superb array with separate stands for cooked stuff, healthy food, cereals, and areas for bread and drinks and so on.



Coffee - of course - and a lingonberry drink from some automated drink dispenser.



I carried my meal outside, where under a netting overhead a crafty gull stood ready to sample the repast.



All around, the interior courtyard walls of the Art Nouveau building surrounded me. An Eliel Saarinen deign, if the name means anything.



Oh yeah, anybody know what this thing is? Some Finnish breakfast delicacy, I make no doubt.



Once my meal was reluctantly over, I took a stroll back through the sparse courtyard garden.



Another go with my new toothbrush and I hefted my bags and was gone.

 

[Skyring]

Lounge time
If you have been paying attention, you'll recall that my Business Light ticket came without some of the regular J perks. Like luggage or seat selection or lounge access.

Luggage I had to pay for, if only to get my Tim Tams and books to Europe, and I let the rest slide except for one lounge access in what I imagine is the Finnair flagship.

So I had an incentive to get to the airport in good time for my lunchtime flight.

There were ticket machines in the main railway station - of course - and after I worked out that some were for the Metro and some were for the regional railway, I bought a ticket and found a seat on the next airport service. They run at frequent intervals and I had plenty of time up my sleeve, so I wasn't racing for a specific departure.



They arrive and leave from the same platform. I'll bet they have two dedicated trains for the airport run and they leave the stations at either end simultaneously, the drivers raising a languid hand to each other as they pass in the middle of the route. Which was where I spotted this quirky house, apparently being renovated. I guess the super-wide eaves help with snow.



On arrival at the airport I found a better vantage point for that vast escalator hall. If you look close, you can see one brave soul running a rag over the handrails. Probably like painting the Harbour Bridge, a neverending full-time job.



I ducked into the supermarket on arrival. I needed more painkillers. Up and down the aisles I looked, but the pharmac_ section was razors and toothpaste and bandaids and things of that nature, not a drug in sight. Apparently, when I asked, the pharmac_ is airside and they dispense the Panadol. I found it - a tiny hole in the wall place - and replenished my reserves.

A matching departure stamp for my Helsinki arrival and my passport was beginning to look like a real one.

At security I covered all my bases and unloaded every tube of liquid and every battery I possessed and they didn't bother me with a hunt for any wayward marmalade or power banks. There was a heartstopping moment in my future in Bangkok, but we'll get to that in due course.

Nose sniffing the air, I hunted down the lounge, presented my boarding pass - I hadn't had to check-in, because I'd received both passes in Edinburgh, and had no big bags - and was smiled in.



Finnair does lounges like the country does infrastructure. Superbly. There was plentiful seating, food and drink options galore, and everywhere clever, convenient, and comfortable features to engage the eyes and posterior.











And, of course, power and USB sockets at every seat.

Love it!

I found some snacks and a supply of champagne connected to the internet and spent a pleasant hour and a half until it was time to board, where I knew I could expect more of the same.

 

[craven morehead]

View attachment 335109
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 quite as vertiginous as I'd imagined. For one thing I was in a boat with railings to hold me in, and the drop to the ground was beyond a towpath and another set of railings. Still, it was pretty bloody impressive looking out from a boat and being surrounded by scenery rather than water or a shoreline.

Even the Kelpies could be seen off in the distance as a pair of bright lumps looking out over the land, though I failed to capture them in any photograph.

View attachment 335110

View attachment 335111

They should be off to the northeast, on the right side, looking back over the aqueduct, but all I can find on my photographs is the suburb of Camelon. Falkirk itself is not too far away but hidden behind the foliage and terrain.

The end of the aqueduct is constricted into a narrow point and the boat skipper has to pay careful attention here. "This is the same width as the narrowest part of the canal further on," he says. If you can't get through here, you might as well reverse and go back down again."

View attachment 335112

Ahead of us is a wider basin with our sister boat ahead and one of the Scottish Canal tourist barges - Archimedes - waiting for us to clear the channel. They are certainly packed in inside. You have a bit of a view from the window seats but nothing like our 360º vista in the open air.

View attachment 335113

"They cram them in, six across, fifteen quid a go, all day every day," our skipper says scornfully, "and Scottish Canals still reckon they are losing money."

Looks like a gold mine to me. Ninety-six seats on a full boat at fifteen pounds each is well over a thousand quid per trip, even knocking off a bit for kids and seniors.

At the end of the basin is the entrance to a tunnel. The Roughcastle Tunnel. We're passing under the remains of one of the old Roman forts along the Antionine Wall, a lesser-known chain of fortifications well north of Hadrian's Wall.

View attachment 335114

View attachment 335115

Once out of the tunnel - and isn't it pretty for the tourists? Thanks, Scottish Canals! - we're into another wider basin. At the end of this, our boat - Barr Seagull - ties up to let Govan Seagull pass through the locks at the far end, while we get a chance to see how the process works.

View attachment 335116

Robert Barr, of course, was the man who introduced the Irn-Bru soft drink to Scotland. Reputedly made out of rusty girders from the Forth Rail Bridge, the drink is widely popular in Scotland and around the world. And rightly so.

View attachment 335117

I've seen boats go through locks before but I'm not averse to watching the process once more.

View attachment 335118
For those with sharp eyesight, the crew member is wearing Scarpa shoes. As was I.

Bloody Awesome!

 

[Lynda2475]

Great trip report, this has me very much looking forward to my couple of days in Helsinki next month. I will be sure to head out for dinner before 9pm.

 

[Skyring]

Great trip report, this has me very much looking forward to my couple of days in Helsinki next month. I will be sure to head out for dinner before 9pm.

I was sucked in by all the light. It didn't feel like it was anything more than late afternoon.

I barely scraped the surface of things to look at.

 

[Skyring]

Heading to Bangkok
Once again I made use of that little red oval and took the priority boarding, turning left where the jetway diverged.

My allocated seat was 3H - a centre aisle seat - but once again there were window seats available and I slid my bum into 3L after checking with a FA.

See my previous for a description of the seat. This one was on the opposite side (and hence the foot tunnel bent in a more convenient angle for my right side sleep preference) and in the larger forward J cabin.



Another A350. A beautiful aircraft. Looking forward to seeing how Qantas configures their A350ER aircraft on the Project Sunrise routes. If I ever find a couple of seats in the forward cabin, that is. No way am I spending twenty hours in the back of the bus.





Takeoff is to the southwest and almost immediately we are crossing a fractured coastline, full of inlets and islands. This must be awesome sailing territory in high summer.



A champagne flight indeed, as I discover once the seatbelt sign goes off.

Combined with the two or three glasses I've already had in the lounge, I'm feeling pretty mellow. More to come…







OMG. This is amazing. The trout is superb, especially with some South African Sav Blanc. The starter plates are each delightful. I'm floating as we climb over Poland.



I restrict myself to the cheese platter.



And, well, the rhubarb mousse. And a sticky wine. And coffee.

Ye gods, this is the way to travel!

 

[Skyring]

Back to Bangkok
After dinner, we turned left over Turkey and aimed ourselves toward Thailand. And a swiftly approaching night. I closed my window shades and watched movies, Mrs Harris Goes to Paris and the hobbit-sized Daniel Radcliffe starring in Weird as the two-metre tall "Weird Al" Yankovic.





I must say that I enjoy Finnair's IFE. The remote control isn't much chop, to be honest, but the touchscreen is reasonably accessible, so long as one doesn't have Radcliffe-sized arms.

A pleasant flight. I got some serious sleep, drunken snores doubtless echoing around the cabin, and woke somewhere over India as a pre-dawn breakfast was served and prepared.



This time I left the marmalade and the amenity kit aboard.



Still dark as we dropped out of a tropic sky into Bangkok.

Flight 2312
Tuesday 20 June 2023
AY 141 HEL-BKK
OH-LWF A359
Scheduled: 1345
Boarding: 1315, Gate 48, allocated 3H, moved to 3L
Pushback: 1350
Takeoff: 1402 to SW
Landing: 0434 from N
Gate: 0443 D6

 

[Skyring]

Box Living
Again with the immigration and baggage claim but this time I wasn't really leaving the airport. In theory I had about thirteen hours before my next flight - to Sydney - and I wanted to stay within easy reach, rather than worry about rush hour traffic both ways.

I looked at the various airport hotels online and none of them seemed to offer particularly good value. I really didn't want a room for a night, just a secure place in the terminal where I could sleep and charge my things and people wouldn't walk off with my stuff or wake me up with luggage trolleys or whatever.

There are two capsule-type hotels, both landside - which is what I needed because I'd have my big bag with me and hours to go before Qantas check-in opened - and they are both located in the basement near the train station.

The picture above shows the smaller facility, Avargard Capsule Hotel, tiny little pods where you can't stand up and your bags go in luggage lockers nearby. If you want a table, you pull down the shutter of the window and people can see in.
I didn't really fancy that. If I had caught up on sleep, I'd be writing or checking emails and stuff. And if I was sleeping, I'd be wanting the flat space to line up my devices and charging cables with the alternative being the floor, such as it is which a queen-sized bed shoehorned into these spacey looking spaces without much actual space.

The other one - the "Boxtel" - looked more like it. Stand up, enough space to store your luggage with you inside, a small table area and a bedside table.

Fairly pricey for what you got - a room in four hour chunks - but still way cheaper than anything else offering an actual hotel room for an overnight stay. I reserved two blocks for eight hours, figuring that the remaining five would be taken up with standing in lines for check in, security, immigration in and out, and whatever time I needed before boarding.

Finding the place wasn't hard. Just follow the signs for the train station and keep on going. There's a corridor that apparently leads to the Novotel a few hundred metres further on but just past the railway station and a cluster of tiny food outlets, convenience stores, money changers and so on you get the capsule precinct.

Mindful of my damaged wheel, I stacked my stuff on a luggage trolley - free in Bangkok, none of this stick your coin in the slot business - and hunted down reception.

They found my reservation, indicated that my time started as of right now, handed me a card and showed me my room.

Inside was a cubical space with a bed and some small tables and enough space to dump my bags. Hooks to hang clothes on and a few power outlets.

No toilet, no shower.

Apparently, there are toilets about twenty metres away but I had a pretty good look and couldn't find them. Maybe they were closed for repairs or something. Whatever, I had to walk back to the terminal, a couple of hundred metres, take an escalator upstairs to a fast food area, and use the facilities there. No showers, but you don't expect them in airport toilets anyway.

I had to get up and use them after my first sleep period, and again just before leaving when I strolled through the terminal with a towel over one shoulder and my toilet bag in my hand. Like I lived there.



These robots patrol the corridors, apparently cleaning up the floor areas. Get in front of them and it politely moves aside, muttering at you in foreign. Hello future world.

The boxes have a bed, a bit of space, light and power, and I got some sleep. There was some noise coming in from outside but really nothing much came through the soundproofing and I slept well.

I changed my clothes to my light plastic kit. Some sort of nylon, I guess, but comfortable for the tropics and long flights, if not particularly stylish.

I thought I had taken a photo of the inside and outside but I can't find anything on any of my cameras, so I must have thought about it and not done it. Or something.

Anyway, not much to say. Convenient, apart from the hike to the dunnies, a secure place to sleep in a terminal, cheaper than a proper hotel and only a few minutes away from the check-in counters.

If I was travelling with my wife, I'd spring for the Novotel, because the occupancy is one person per pod. But for a lone traveller with a few hours to charge up the batteries, these things are okay.