The Falkirk Wheel

The Kelpies by day

The Kelpies by night

Overnight for motorhomes £5

 

Day 1 - Home To The Falkirk Wheel And The Kelpies

Light drizzle in Lancaster when we got up, not the best conditions for loading up the motorhome for a long journey, this time it's not a problem because we loaded all but a few things into the Hymer yesterday. Today all we need pack are those last minute essentials that can't go in earlier.

This motorhome trip is to The Orkneys, we have planned to spend 3 days and 3 nights on the journey to the north coast of Scotland, crossing from Scrabster (Thuso) to Stromness on the early ferry on the fourth morning.

There are two sights that we want to visit on our first day, The Falkirk Wheel, a modern answer to the problem of raising and lowering canal boats from one canal level to another without a long flight on locks; and The kelpies, a massive sculpture located not far from Falkirk.

After breakfast we complete all the usual checks around the house, turn off the water, turn off the power to the garage and finally board the Hymer and lift the steps. I always think of a spacecraft lifting the access steps when we lift the steps, it's our personal spacecraft that is going to take us to another adventure and places we have never been.

Alan takes the first spell of driving, then we stop briefly at another nondescript motorway services where we drink coffee from a flask (great time-saver) before swapping drivers and pressing on. Gill completes the journey to the Falkirk Wheel and we arrive in good time, a total of nearly hours driving for 177 miles.

It's a very strange thing that our Hymer B544 PremiumLine always gives better fuel economy when travelling south than travelling north. Today's miles per gallon is 29.9, which is about what we expect. There are two car parks for the Falkirk Wheel, we follow the one that is for buses and coaches because the spaces for cars are always too small for the Hymer. First we eat lunch.

It turns out to be a great choice because a short walk takes us to the canal and we find ourselves opposite the wheel with a great view of it. We look at an elegant modern solution to an age-old problem - raising and lowering boats between canals. The wheel is a great solution. We wander about watching as the wheel turns slowly and lifts one floating boat whilst lowering another at the same time. Each boat floats in its own private pool of water that's kept level the whole time. As an engineer I appreciate the design and operation.

 It's worth noting that there are no admission charges at the Falkirk Wheel.

Next we drive the short distance to Helix Park, the home of The Kelpies, stopping off at Tesco on the way to fill up with diesel. Generally when we're travelling we like to keep the Hymer topped up with fuel because one never knows when or where the next fuel will be available. The other benefit when travelling north is that you know the price - on The Orkneys the price of fuel if NOT shown on a board outside the filling stations - you have to go and look at the pumps!

There are two car parks at Helix Park, home of The Kelpies; take your pick. As you enter there is a car park on your left, this one is free, but it's a reasonable walk to The Kelpies, the second car park is much closer, but it costs £3 for cars and £5 for motorhomes. We have no problem with the walk. This is Scotland, so forget all those restrictive rules about staying overnight and ridiculously high charges. You can stay at The Kelpies for £5 overnight fee in your motorhome, there are no facilities like water or waster water disposal, but the toilets on the 'near' car park are open until 10pm so you can take advantage of that.

The rest of the UK needs to take note about having motorhomes stay overnight on car parks, if evidence of demand is needed then look no further than Helix Park.

We went and explored the site, starting at the car park near the entrance to Helix Park. I think that is a better choice than the near car park because you get out of your vehicle and walk but don't really see The Kelpies until you are closer, that adds to the sense of approaching something special. The sculptures are on a grand scale. Massive.  Nothing really prepares you for the scale so it's worth a the walk. The gift shop and cafe have an excellent view of The Kelpies, and surprisingly, the food in the cafe is reasonably-priced.

We enjoyed our time walking around and looking at the sculpture from different angles. Paid our £5 to stay overnight then returned to the Hymer and ate our evening meal.

The great benefit of staying overnight is that you get to visit The Kelpies after dark and see them lit up. This was a special treat, The Kelpies were lit internally with a purple colour and stood out well against the dark evening sky. This is something that the casual day visitors would never see. We settled down for the night on the car park, there were a total of 8 motorhomes staying overnight, I think that shows what a demand there is for good and sensible parking for motorhomes overnight.

Summary of trip