Kathleen
Loch Lomand and Balloch – 7/4&5/2013
The next day we headed out to Loch Lomand, where we were promised more beautiful scenery and a fabulous hiking route. On the way, we stopped at Calendar Park in Falkirk to see the runner up to Hadrian’s wall (we missed Hadrian’s wall on the way through because there was nothing really to see on our chosen route) as well as the Rings of Falkirk. The wall was a bit disappointing to say the least. What we actually saw was a castle which had a room on the second floor from which you could open up two little shutters and a line on the window would show you were the wall should be….I mean, there was a bit of a prominentory but we learned that the Antonine wall was actually made of wood, so I guess it is not suprising that there is not much left. The Rings, however, were one of the neatest modern contraptions I have ever seen. Apparently, during WWII, a set of about 7 or 8 locks here was bombed and instead of rebuild the entire system, the crazy Scots opted to build one boat elevator of sorts. It consists of two chambers on either side of a gigantic swing mechanism which can move one boat up and one boat down at the same time….you have to look at the pics to actually get a feel for it. It is possible I may post a video of this device in action at some later time, but for some reason I can’t figure out how to get it from my camera to my ipad and I may have deleted it. Oh well, the pictures should give you the idea….extremely cool!
Balloch was a very small little town and we stayed at a lovely little B&B attached to a sheep farm a couple miles out of town. We had to go into town for internet access, but they had a nice bar/restaurant with good beer that provided free wi-fi, so it wasn’t too much of a burden:) The first night there we a had a very good Indian dinner at one of the 4 or 5 restaurants in town. The next day we took a lovely bike ride, mostly on paths that ran along Loch Lomand. It is a beautiful place and we enjoyed the exercise and the view and the fact that when we were all tired we could wheel our bikes right onto the ferry and be transported over the beautiful loch back to Balloch, where we started from. We like a nice mix of active and lazy!!