Union Canal - Edinburgh
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Edinburgh Canal Festival 2017
Falkirk Wheel
A real time view of the Falkirk Wheel turning 180 degrees. The wheel joins two canals and gives access to Glasgow and Edinburgh. It is an engineering masterpiece and a must visit attraction in Scotland.
ABC Boat Hire - Narrowboat Holidays & Short Breaks
The canals and rivers of England, Scotland and Wales stretch for over 2000 miles through some of the finest countryside imaginable. At ABC Boat Hire we have 14 start locations throughout the waterway network, from Falkirk in Scotland to Hilperton in Wiltshire, offering the widest choice of self-drive boat hire and narrowboat holidays.
Edinburgh Canal Festival 2017
Falkirk to Edinburgh Canal Boating (20x timelapse)
Timelapse video of our entire canal boat trip from Falkirk to Edinburgh and back, including rides on the Falkirk Wheel. Sorry about the butt-shots...I occasionally forgot about the GoPro and stood in front of it.
Highlights:
00:01:09 - Up the wheel.
00:03:45 - Up the locks.
00:06:29 - Through a tunnel (bonus kayakers after the tunnel).
00:09:08 - Stopping for groceries.
00:12:57 - First night parking (bonus feeding ducks/geese).
00:13:56 - Aqueduct.
00:15:57 - Bridge with more kayakers.
00:16:36 - Tying up in Linlithgow to get water and feed the ducks (also a great place to get a beer).
00:18:01 - If you get out early on your first day and are willing to go into dusk, you can probably make it to this mooring in Linlithgow for the night. But it's a trudge, which is probably why that first night parking cove exists.
00:19:55 - Canal bistro (The Park Bistro We didn't stop. It's on the left.
00:21:25 - Passing another boat coming the opposite direction. Because people have asked. There's plenty of room in most parts.
00:23:44 - Surreal trees, a bridge, clouds mirrored in the canal.
00:24:55 - An example of mooring to the bank in an unofficial spot, using the plank and stakes (Winchburgh--also a good place for a beer, but everyone at the bar will noticeably notice that y'aint from 'round here...or however the Scottish spell that).
00:28:16 - Passing a canal dredger (mildly interesting, if you're into that).
00:29:39 - Aqueduct and overnight mooring point.
00:31:41 - Creepy Santa's Castle on an Island. We were horrified and intrigued enough to actually stop, back up and circle around the island.
00:32:37 - I jump out and walk along the towpath. It's such an amazing resource. You can easily hop off, walk, and hop back on at any bridge where the canal necks down.
00:33:43 - I hop back on and then we have to wait for the old people's tea boat to turn around.
00:37:52 - Aqueduct over a freeway. Juxtaposition. (see for another view of the crossing).
00:39:14 - Starting to get urban as we head into Edinburgh.
00:45:11 - Ending in Edinburgh, with lift-bridge. You call ahead to get them to lift it for you.
00:45:49 - Turning around in Edinburgh (after a day or so of beers, notice we bounce a bit as we turn around) to head home.
00:46:20 - Stopping for water and waiting for the lift-bridge to leave Edinburgh.
00:50:01 - Oops! This is what happens when there's not enough room for boats to pass. We needed to back up and wait. What you can't tell from this silent timelapse is that, according with British Waterways rules (srsly, read the handbook before you go, it's simple stuff), we sound the horn at each bridge. Oncoming boats do the same, which is why we knew they were there.
01:00:41 - Stopping in Port Buchan, Broxburn to get attacked by swans while we try to get water (the boat hire will probably warn you not to stop here overnight because impish vandals will throw rocks at your boat).
01:10:14 - Getting water in Linlithgow (yeah, we bumped into that guy's boat. Oops).
01:10:59 - Don obsessively rocking as we refill our water in Linlithgow.
01:16:03 - WTF? Is that a boat sideways across the canal? A couple got stoned out of their gourds and got their boat stuck across the canal. I hopped out and un-stuck it for them. The woman tried to keep going and got a short ways but, in her shouted words, she cannae doo it, so I mooored them on the bank and we continued past them without further ado. For all I know, they might still be there.
01:22:41 - Back through the tunnel.
01:24:20 - Waiting for a boat to pass on our way down. The wind blew us into the bank and it took some effort to get going again.
01:25:53 - Down the locks.
01:28:16 - Down the wheel.
Vlog 005 - Living on a canal boat in Scotland
Vlog 005 is all about boat life... a break from farm chat.
I take a cruise along the Union Canal and discuss my favourite things about living afloat in Scotland, as well as briefly discussing some of the more challenging parts.
From the environment, freedom, wildlife and community, the best bits of boat life is what 005 is all about.
Our farm is a test site for community-owned canal boat moorings. You can find out more about our moorings project at communitymoorings.com
You can find out more about the canals of Scotland at scottishcanals.co.uk
website:
instagram:
email: info@narrowboatfarm.com
phone: +44 (0) 7866 776 640
Edinburgh Canal Festival 2017
New town Edinburgh, Scotland on the Union Canal
Entering New town Edinburgh, Scotland on the Union Canal in the evening of a great sunny Summer day, Aug 2018
20030829b England and Scotland Narrowboat Alice
In August and September of 2003 my wife and I travelled to England and Scotland for three weeks. These videos document that trip which included a week on a narrowboat cruising the Trent and Mersey canal, a drive across Scotland to see the Falkirk Wheel, the Forth Rail Bridge, Edinburgh Castle, the Harrison clock at Brocklesby Park, Cambridge University, the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, and a bit of London.
This is the narrowboat we rented for a week.
Glasgow to Edinburgh (Portobello beach) on the Forth & Clyde + Union canal
A video made for fun from my ride this weekend.
Recorded: 2016-03-26.
Special thanks to Cheri, for letting me borrow her camera; a Polaroid Cube.
Music credits:
bensound.com:
- rumble
freemusicarchive.org:
- Broke For_Free - Night Owl(extended)
- Broke For_Free - Something Elated
- Dexter Britain - Waking Up Instrumental
- The Kyoto Connection - Hachiko The Faithtful Dog
- Dexter Britain - The Time To Run Finale (shortened)
Great Canal Journeys Series 2 Episode 4
Forth and Clyde and Grand Union Canals
Ice breaker delivers coal on Macclesfield canal
January 2016 watching this narrow boat break the ice.
The Falkirk Wheel. Scotland.
The Falkirk Wheel is a rotating boat lift in Scotland, connecting the Forth and Clyde Canal with the Union Canal. The lift, named after the nearby town of Falkirk in central Scotland, opened in 2002. It reconnects the two canals for the first time since the 1930s as part of the Millennium Link project.
The plan to regenerate central Scotland's canals and reconnect Glasgow with Edinburgh was led by British Waterways with support and funding from seven local authorities, the Scottish Enterprise Network, the European Regional Development Fund, and the Millennium Commission. Planners decided early on to create a dramatic 21st-century landmark structure to reconnect the canals, instead of simply recreating the historic lock flight.
The wheel raises boats by 24 metres (79 ft), but the Union Canal is still 11 metres (36 ft) higher than the aqueduct which meets the wheel. Boats must also pass through a pair of locks between the top of the wheel and the Union Canal. The Falkirk Wheel is the only rotating boat lift of its kind in the world, and one of two working boat lifts in the United Kingdom, the other being the Anderton boat lift.
The two canals served by the wheel were previously connected by a series of 11 locks. With a 35-metre (115 ft) difference in height, it required 3,500 tonnes (3,400 long tons; 3,900 short tons) of water per run and took most of a day to pass through the flight.
By the 1930s these had fallen into disuse, and the locks were dismantled in 1933. The Forth and Clyde canal closed at the end of 1962, and the by the mid-1970s the Union canal was filled in at both ends, rendered impassable by culverts in two places and run in pipes under a housing estate. The British Waterways Board (BWB) came into existence on 1 January 1963, the day the Forth and Clyde was closed, with the objective of finding a broad strategy for the future of canals in the United Kingdom.
In 1976, the BWB decided after a meeting with local councils that the Forth and Clyde canal, fragmented by various developments, was to have its remaining navigability preserved by building new bridges with sufficient headroom for boats and continuing to maintain the existing locks. Restoration of sea-to-sea navigation was deemed too expensive at the time, but there were to be no further restrictions on its use. A 1979 survey report documented 69 obstructions to navigation, and sought the opinions of twenty interested parties to present the Forth and Clyde Local (Subject) Plan in 1980.
Boat Trip on the Union Canal, Edinburgh
During the 2012 Canal Festival we took a break from watching the raft races to go on a free boat trip. The journey is from Leamington Lift Bridge/Lochrin Basin to Harrison Park.
The boat we were on is called the Slateford.
Canal boat @ ratho near edinburgh
Boaters dvd youtube 02 1)
Great Canal Journeys Episode 1
Travalogue with Timothy West and Prunella Scales.
Episode 1 The Kennett and Avon Canal.
Edinburgh Canal Festival, on Live At Five
Pat Bowie, manager of Re-Union Canal Boats , talks to Live At Five about the history of Fountain Bridge's canal in Edinburgh and how her team is revitalising the use of the canal through festivals, races and other community activities. June 20th, 2016, on Live At Five.