Falkirk canal hike

Yesterday we walked around Falkirk, Scottland. To stay away from busy streets I routed us through a park, where we happened upon the Callandar house, which apparently was the site of a lot of Scottish history, dating back to 1000AD. The interesting part to me was that they showed how the house changed over time. It wasn't until the 1800s that it looked anything like the fancy, old building that we saw, before that it was more or less a rectangle of ever increasing size.

From the park we tried to find an old canal and towpath which had been converted into a hiking and biking trail. I had seen it from google satalight views, so I knew there was a trail, though at the time I didn't realize it was a canal - I though it was a small river next to a hiking trail. Perhaps that is why I was confused when my smart  "phone" showed that we were getting close, but it was nowhere in sight. Eventually we were standing right on top of the river, and all we could see were gently rolling hills. The map software is sometimes hard to interpret, but this was pretty strange. I concluded there must be a tunnel, though at the time I had no idea if it was open to foot traffic, nor was it clear why it would even be there, since I didn't know about the canal.

Some more wandering, however, brought us to a valley through which the canal and trail were routed. We almost turned back, however, because the sign for the trail leading into the valley said it was closed due to landslide. After some discussion, we decided to take a look, anyway, which revealed no such landslide. Silly sign.

Indeed, the canal did pass though a tunnel. As did the hiking trail. The canal was constructed around 1812, and though the tunnel itself was not labeled, I assume it too dated to the same time,as otherwise the canal would have been pretty useless. It was a little intimidating to enter a 200 year old tunnel, at least in part because it was leaking very badly - along several points inside a large amount of water fell in torrents from the ceiling, sometimes into the canal, sometimes onto the trail (yuck!). The tunnel was quite long - around 1800 feet long, with the occasional light to keep it from being pitch black.  It felt very much like a movie set, especially because of the all the noise from the falling water. I'm quite impressed they build something so large so long ago, and that it lasted so long.

At points it was quite like being in a cave, including some stalagmites hanging from the ceiling, and in a few places, huge limestone deposits covering the old brick walls - perhaps a few inches think in places! I was a little worried that jymm might feel claustrophobic, but it seems she enjoyed it almost as much as I did.