40+ miles today starting with an early- ish visit to the Kelpies at the Helix in Grangemouth. The horses themselves are an impressive sight as they can be seen from some distance away and get bigger as you approach until they are enormous. Here’s to the thousands of horses over the years who lived and died working the canals in their heyday and beyond. Man is not all-powerful.

Onto the Falkirk Wheel – looks good and does a good job no doubt but that’s about all I can say. Did not see it in motion though – people said it goes slow so cracked on towards Bowling 32 miles down the canal. Bowling is the end of the actual canal at Lock No. 30 which empties into the Clyde -also the end of NCN 754. Journey’s end today though was actually Milton today some 3 miles further up NCN route 7 (Loch Lomond bound) as needed an overnight stop. Signs of industry long gone all the way along the route. We don’t make what we used to – the evidence is out there for all to see – if you look. The water of the canal was more sea-like nearer the Firth of Forth then resumed its cocoa colour half way along  don’t know why though – that’s just the way it is. A variety of smells along the route today from the usual country smells to aniseed, peppery wafts and strangely back-drafts of aftershave from passing male cyclists the nearer we approached Glasgow as they sped by rushing to who knows what and who knows where.

Into Glasgow cyclist number 252 for the day according to an electronic counter by the Sustrans  big bike. The thing that strikes me most passing through Glasgow is how much of the industry has gone, long gone, and with it the old communities that must have existed alongside as people did not have the opportunity to venture as far as us in those days. They lived, worked, and died within a tiny radius unless they took the King’s shilling – to serve the Empire in foreign lands but still working for the man. No boats for miles again today – if you want solitude renounce English Waterways and boat north of the border.

Journey’s end at Bowling – another epitaph to industry long gone. At one time the investment to create the mini harbour at Bowling must have been immense – both in terms of money, manpower, and the efforts of the Kelpies of course. The tie up’s on the jetty suggest the ships were large carrying cargo of coal, fish, and whatever else brought wealth. Now they sit lonely and forgotten. A footnote in Scotland’s industrial history. Journey’s over for today.