Tuesday, June 21, 2016

McBoating on Sonya–Day #4

Tuesday 21st June

Ahh – the days will get shorter now, nights drawing in. But here in Scotland that’s relative, still light at gone 10pm and dawn breaks at 4ish in the morning. All very well but how do they cope in winter?

At 10 am we moved across the quay onto the facilities mooring and emptied our rubbish and filled our water tank. Sonya has a handy water level guage in the lounge, something sorely missing on Jannock. At 10:30am, Leamington Lift bridge was lifted for us and we left India Quay heading towards Glasgow.

During our trip from Edinburgh to the M8 bridge (21a) we met the same fourIMG_2363 widebeam tripboats that we had happened across on our way into Edinburgh. When we got to bridge 21a it is obvious that the Union canal used to be truncated by the M8 motorway as the route veers around a couple of bends before going under the motorway where the field fences indicate that it used to go straight at this point. The bridge is identified as being built in 2000 so was obviously done as part of the millenium push to re-open the canal.

IMG_2364We passed Gamebird again and this time I managed to get a photo. As the afternoon drew on, it became colder and colder in the wind and so Brenda took refuge inside the boat and put the heating on. Once I had moored us for the night later on she was fast asleep so I hope she’s not sickening for something.

IMG_2376As I passed back through the strange landscape near Fairnie Hill it became obvious that these mounds are man made so there must have been mining or quarrying going on in these parts long ago. I continued on and moored up for the night at Linlithgo.

An ABC hireboat crewed by two Australian couples pulled in onto the mooring behind and so I chatted with them for a while before coming in aand preparing dinner. Brenda is still not too bright so I’ll wait and see how she’s feeling in the morning before booking the lock passages needed to continue on into Glasgow.

Graham

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