Road trip to St. Andrews and Falkirk
Off on another road trip this morning. This time we’re headed to St. Andrews, birthplace of that most frustrating of sports, golf. And then on to Falkirk to see one of the neatest inventions of the modern world, the Falkirk Wheel. A wee bit of rain to start the day but the forecast is for clearing skies and temps about the same as yesterday, 55-580.
Gassed up the Vauxhall Corsa, put on the driving gloves and sped off for the home of golf, St. Andrews. Only 40 miles away but the drive will take about an hour and 20 minutes, that should tell you something about Scottish roads. We thought Irish roads had a lot of curves, but they’re nothing compared to Scottish roads. The only good thing here is that the sheep are fenced in and there have only been a handful of bicyclists on the road. Damn good thing, two cars can barely fit so anything additional is not good.
Just a word about my Scottish brothers and their driving habits. They are a proud group, focused on winning, driven (no pun intended), and under no circumstance will they be late to an accident. Seems everyone behind the wheel of a car has less than 1 minute to get where they are going. But got to hand it to them, their drafting technique is flawless, slip-shot passing is executed before you know it, and once they’re at their destination, parking is done is seconds. Never, in all of our travels, have we encountered such a fanatical bunch of road maniacs. And the parking, anywhere-anytime. Doesn’t matter which side of the road, or on the road, park wherever you want for as long as you want. That includes the middle of the street. Quite often we have come around a blind curve to see a car parked right in the road. No biggie, we just stop and wait for the traffic to clear then proceed in the oncoming lane. Good thing Collette is the navigator cause I just close my eyes and hope for the best. Worked so far.
Back to the drive to St. Andrews. Nice countryside tour with lots of farms, most growing hay or raising sheep. We’ve seen a few cattle ranches but these have been small herds of 20 or 30 head. We did see a deer ranch but that was a one off.
We arrived at St. Andrews and talked with a representative in the reception area about tee times and how the booking system works. So, here’s the skinny on St. Andrews and the “Old Course” tee times. First, it’s all by lottery unless you belong to one of the golf clubs (meaning groups not the sticks) that has an agreement with the course. They get first shot at tee times. Otherwise, your name goes into the lottery and if you’re lucky, it is chosen for a particular day and time. If you want to play as a single walk-on, you can submit your name in the morning when the pro shop opens. They can tell you how many slots they have and if you get one, what time that will be. If there are more people applying than spots available, you can wait around to see if someone cancels. Don’t forget to bring about $250.00 for your round.
Looking out on the New Course
New Course in center, Jubilee Course on right
Putting course
That’s a good dog!
The Happy Couple
#1 tee Old Course
18th green Old Course
Old Course clubhouse
That’s the Old Course. There are six other courses here that are easier to get a tee time and cost a little less. These courses are right next to the old course so it’s hard to tell where one fairway ends and another begins. That would be a good thing for me. There is also this funky little putting course that looks like you’re playing golf in a bunch of bomb craters.
Best thing is we found very nice people everywhere, pleasant to talk with and willing to take plenty of time to discuss the tee times, rules and fees.
This is for Chris Morasci: There is one other way to play the Old Course and two of the other courses, sign up for the Winter package. Of course, the 2019/2020 packages are booked but if you want to play Winter 2020/2021 just get ready to submit your request somewhere around 5 June 2020. A minimum of 2 players and a max of 16 can be submitted for golf dates 1 November 2020 to 31 March 2021. Something to think about.
That’s all for St. Andrews, next we’ll travel to Falkirk to see the Falkirk Wheel. About 1 hour from St. Andrews is the town of Falkirk, home to the Falkirk Wheel. We saw this “wheel” on a Discovery channel show some time back and thought it would be cool to see it in person.
What is the Falkirk Wheel, you ask? Well, it is the only rotating boat lift in the world! Built from 1999 to 2001, the Falkirk Wheel was used to replace 11 “locks” that linked the Forth and Clyde canals. In the 1930’s these locks feel out of use and were dismantled. By the 1960’s, the canals were no longer used and efforts were made to fill them in. When the canals and locks were in use, it took the better part of a day to transfer through them.
Fast forward to 1993 and Scotland’s Lorries Act. This act created the “Millennium Commission” who was chartered with disseminating funds for good causes. I wonder if they had a commission that disseminated funds for bad causes? A proposal was put forth to reopen the canals and was priced at around 78MGBP. ($96MUSD today). The Commission allocated 42MGBP and the rest was raised through private and public donations, and a nice chunk from the EU, 8.7MEUR. I wonder if they are going to ask Britain to refund that money when they leave the EU 31 October 2019?????
So, what’s cool about this “Wheel” is the design. The inspiration for the design was a double-headed Celtic axe with two opposing arms being the “cradles” for ships. The “cradles” or “gondolas” are always equally weighted so the system is balanced, even when ships are added. Using Archimedes principle that floating ships displace their weight in water, the water level is constantly measured by a central computer to ensure it is balanced.
The Falkirk Wheel
Starting to lift
How big is this thing? The Wheel has an overall diameter of 115’ with the opposing arms extending 49’ from the center axle. Each of the two gondolas hold about 66,000 gallons of water and carry a combined weight of 500 tons. It takes 22.5 kilowatts of power to rotate the Wheel ½ turn, or about as much energy as boiling 8 tea pots. It takes less than 5 minutes for the Wheel to complete a half-turn. Compare that with all day to transit 11 locks!
Here is a video of the Wheel in operation. Apologize for the shaking but it was quite windy yesterday and then it started to rain.
Been there, seen that so back to the car for our snack lunch then the drive back to Crieff. Good day touring Scotland and talking with some really nice people. Tomorrow is castle day, we’re off to Doune castle the site of several movies (Monty Python & the Holy Grail, Outlander, Game of Thrones) and home of Regent Albany, Scotland’s uncrowned king.
Later gator…..