Today we'd be leaving Fort William and driving back to Edinburgh. Surprisingly it was warmer this morning than it had been for a while (10C). There was no blue sky - just a uniform high grey cloud cover. It was sprinkling lightly and there was a strong gusty wind.
We left the B&B soon after 9:30am and drove down the hill to a carpark near the main street of Fort William.
There were clothes that we wanted to send back to Australia rather than carting them around for the remainder of our holiday. This included the suit I'd brought along for the wedding, Suzy's long boots and thermal underwear that we'd used in Iceland.
We'd packed them all in a box and I fronted up to the post office to send it by British Post. I was amazed find it was going to cost 115 GBP. Much more than I expected. In the end, we decided to pay it.
Suzy had planned to get her nails done but the salon said they didn't have the necessary equipment.
So we left Fort William at about 10:30. On the way to Edinburgh, the plan was to visit two places that people had recommended: the Falkirk Wheel and the Kelpies - both of which are close together and near Edinburg. So we set the satnav for the Falkirk Wheel.
Once again, we travelled on narrow windy roads. Much of the time the road followed the edge of various lochs. At other times, it went through a valley surrounded on both sides but tall rugged rocky hills. Great scenery.
At about 12:30pm, we stopped at a cafe in the middle of nowhere for lunch. It was very busy because a brightly coloured double decker bus full of tourists was already there. We set off again at about 1:30. By this time the weather had improved with plenty of sunshine and blue sky.
For some of the journey, we were travelling on highways such as the A9 or motorways such as the M9. However, to get to the Falkirk Wheel, the satnav led us through narrow suburban streets.
We were only about 3km from our destination when we came across a bingle that was blocking the road and we had to find another route. It seemed as though two cars had a head-on collision trying to go through a narrow archway that was barely wide enough for one car.
The Falkirk Wheel is described as a feat of engineering. It provides a method to transfer boats from one canal to another nearby canal at a higher level or vice versa. It does this using a huge wheel that rotates with the boats inside. They say it's the world’s only rotating boat lift.
We saw it in action and we set off again at about 3:30pm and reached the Kelpies by about 3:45pm. This attraction consists of two huge silver horsehead sculptures. It reminded me of attractions back home such as the Big Banana.
The satnav guided us successfully to the Enterprise car rental drop-off area but this was a problem because we needed to fill up with petrol before dropping the car off and we turned around to find a petrol station.
Petrol here cast about 1.60 GBP per litre (about $A3).
We got there in the end but it was difficult navigating the roads in the area.
In the end, we delivered the car to Enterprise at about 5pm. Luckily, the Hampton by Hilton Hotel was just across the road and so we carted our bags there without having to get a taxi as we had originally planned.
Our room has a queen size bed, carpet, large work desk, safe, kettle etc, wardrobe, comfy chair, plenty of power points, Wifi about 15Mb/s in both directions. The bathroom has a large walk-in shower. I imagine most of their customers only stay for one night and this room would be quite suitable.
Suzy made the comment that she needed a stiff drink after the navigation problems we'd had but we managed to wait until about 7pm when we went downstairs to the hotel restaurant for dinner.
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