Day 3: Heading North

 Today we left Glasgow. 

To start, due to the bike race road closures, we had to walk down the street to order an Uber to take us to the car rental place.  Asheem tried his best but could not get around the detours (or diversions as they call them here).  He had to stop about 1/2 mile away and we had to walk down to him ( at the same place the taxi dropped us when we arrived). But we found him and off we went to pick up Nessie!

Grover, and his new friend Hamish, got strapped in and we were off to the Falkirk Wheel!  But first, we had to spend about 30 minutes getting around the detours to get out of the city. Once we go the motorway though, it was clear sailing!

The Falkirk Wheel is pretty amazing. It replaces 11 locks and it lifts a boat up and around. 

The boats go in the bottom, the water drains and they spin up to the top.  The top seals and the boat rides along the top, comes back around down as the next boat goes up.  Krissy has some video I’ll have to post on.  

We then drove over to the Kelpies, which were super cool!  I feel like, if you didn’t know they were there and came upon them, you’d wonder what this was.  They’re super amazing to see up close!

Grover, of course, had to get a picture with them!

Even the manes are cool!

Grover is wearing his kilt in this trip too!

There was a puppy meet up too.  I met @causewaythechowchow.  He’s super cute and named after the Giants Causeway. 

When we left there we headed to Sterling Castle.  Now it’s up in a hill (as you would assume).  We drove up and we’re told the parking is closed (due to the darn bike race again!) so we had to drive down and find a lot to park in and hike up.  We almost missed our tour but we caught it in time.  It’s an interesting castle. It was built mainly around a square, with the kings residence at the highest point and defenses around. Part was rebuilt by James VI, which you can see in the different stones. 

The different stones and sanding.  The yellow had worn off but, when restored, they put it back to its original color. 

The defense system

The unicorn is on the seal. The tour guide said, back then, they believed unicorns were real…I said what do you mean, they are real!

They reset the main kitchen with mannequins and show how it would have been set up back in the day. 

I walked along part of the wall to see the surrounding g area. 

Once we left Sterling we were off to the best part…THE ALPACA TREK!!

They have a whole lot of animals in the farm and we went around and met some!

This is Alan…and he loved us!

This is Woody and I got to trek with him!

Alan was a bit of a camera hog…but so cute!

I feel like a coo and a hen mated…

Olive the Owl

OUR FORST COO SITING!!!

Just a couple ladies walking their Alpacas!  Lisa was walking Alan and Krissy was walking Bear.  Every year they have a theme they name all the babies from. Woody was from their Disney year (Toy Story). 

On the walk out, everyone was pretty slow and enjoying eating the grass.  We walked out, across the street and down the way to the boardwalk. Once we got the boardwalk the pace picked up; these guys look forward to getting back!  On the way out, Woody was hanging towards the back. Once we got towards the boardwalk, he had to be up front!  

I was sad to leave Woody at the end of the trek, but we did get to see the animals again!

After the trek, we were off to Balloch to our next AirBNB.  This is a super cute part of a farm house.  We settled in and headed to dinner at the Loch Lomond restaurant.  Krissy finally got her fish and chips and I was so excited for vegetables and salad (with the steak and ale pie).  Lisa had chicken gougons and chips.

I leave you with the speed signs in the area 

Oh and that today we put in over 22k steps