After Skye, we headed across country to Stirling, then south to our last stop, a hotel near the outskirts of Edinburgh (more on that later). I kept telling LL that one of our choices on the way was to stop and see the Falkirk Kelpies, giant metal horse statues. Each time I mentioned them she would shrug and say, “yeah, sure, okay”. Clearly not into going, but as I was driving, she had little choice.
I’d never seen them, but I did have some idea of what to expect, so as we were driving south down the M9 motorway, I caught a glimpse of metal over the trees to the right and said, “I think that’s them.” Just then the trees cleared a bit and LL cried out, “W#@! . . .T%# . . . F*$!” She had just seen the top of the 100′ (yes, one hundred foot) metal horseheads at The Helix park in Falkirk looming over the motorway. It seems when I described them as giant horse statues, she was expecting maybe a 10′ tall bronze statue of a horse, like the Duke of Wellington’s statue in London. So, she was lukewarm at best. Well, that all changed.
Helix Park was amazing. Like so many Scottish monuments, parks, and museums, it’s free. The giant park is full of walkways through the meadows and marshes; there are little canals with narrowboats and unmanned canal locks; and you can wander hectares of woodland and open fields.
And there are the Kelpies. The story and facts behind them are very interesting, but no amount of information or photos can prepare you for actually being there. What an excellent second last day in Scotland for LL.