After the rain last week, we did the rest of the recce for the walking group's hike to the Kelpies yesterday. Mr L and I have walked this canal route before, with another group, but thought we should do it again in case there'd been any changes. We paused a few times to watch this boat go through various locks - it didn't move fast so we got to the next lock as quickly as it did.
These pictures are probably much the same as the ones I posted last time. Here you can see first glimpse of the Kelpies in the distance - large horses' heads which have become a tourist attraction. Kelpies are supposed to be shape-shifting water spirits which often take the shape of horses - as here.
They're really very effective - as you approach them, you can almost persuade yourself that they're moving, especially when the separate scales glisten in Scotland's reliably bright sunlight. (Well, it was sunny yesterday.)
It was a clever plan to put them here because the countryside's flat and not particularly interesting and they're a striking feature, visible from quite far off (though also, I believe, distractingly visible from the nearby major road).
On the return leg of the walk we listened to our iPods, which we'd taken with us just in case we ran out of scintillating conversation. After all, we've been talking to each other for nearly 50 years and thought we might need extra distraction from our aching feet. I walked back through the whole of the Brahms German Requiem and a bit of the St Matthew Passion - I don't think I could have kept going through all of it, beautiful though it is. That would have been another five miles or so. As it was, we plodded nine and a bit miles and though we enjoyed it, we were fairly glad to get back to the car.
Mr L is painting the dining room, a splendid project of which I approve. But you know what it's like - somehow the sitting room, the hall and one spare bedroom all currently contain dining room stuff. I'm looking forward to a return to normal.
Great photos and remarkable sculptures. Kelpies here are dogs, not horses. What excellent walkers you are. My walks tend to be short and local.
ReplyDeleteI like the kelpies, even if they are horses rather than dogs - as they are here! That's very pretty blossom in your photo.
ReplyDeleteI am hoping to see them myself next week, unless things change - as they are wont to do...
ReplyDeleteLovely Kelpies....I was just rereading Mrs. Tim Christie, aka Mrs. Tim of the Regiment, where her daughter Betty and a friend (very young ones) go looking for kelpies and are lost. When found Betty is crushed to learn that "real" kelpies do not exist. But yours look pretty real.
ReplyDeleteNine and a bit miles is pretty impressive. I could walk that but (ahem) other matters prevent, unless there is plenty of cover if you get my drift. TMI?
ReplyDeleteThis was just your warm-up tour of the Kelpies, right??? You probably need to go again. Third time is the charm! ;-P
ReplyDeleteI was curious to know what the Kelpies are made out of, so I consulted the Google oracle, and was rather surprised to find some pretty scathing comments about them, as per this:
ReplyDelete"I feel like crying that someone spent £5m on this piece of trash. Imagine the boost that bounty might have given to Falkirk's public libraries. Instead, school kids will bussed to a park to gaze on brainless dreck.
We think we live in an artistic golden age, but these will be our monuments: towering inanities the Victorians would have blushed to build"
Ouch! Do many other Scots have similar thoughts? Oh, I still haven't found out what they are made of...after the insults, I didn't feel like poking around any further :-(
On a completely different subject, do you read "People's Friend" magazine? It turns up in our opshop regularly and the seniors from a nearby aged care centre pounce on them. Ken's cousin gets them and has started giving them to me. I do enjoy them, reminds me of what magazines used to be like here in the 1950's.