Tuesday, 9 September 2025

Two giant horse heads

 is an accurate but very reductive way to describe The Kelpies. We've visited several times and were surprised to discover that son No 2 had never seen them, so a couple of days ago off we went. 



I am quite proud of that photo.


close up of the steel work (DK strikes again!) 


Baby horse heads by the Visitor Centre with my baby between them. 

After we had marvelled at the big ones we took a walk along the canal path where we saw a swan family - a Mum and 5 half grown cygnets. They were paddling in a flotilla but I didn't manage a good photo of that sadly. Here's a photo of one of the cygnets though with a bit of fancy water reflection. 


Part of the canal path has been designated the Charlotte  Dundas Heritage   Trail. Hands up if you want that to say Charlotte Rhodes and out yourself as a former Onedin Line fan. Apparently the Charlotte Dundas  was the first genuine powered canal boat. 


We're forever finding this sort of seat, there are loads in Alva, it must be a local thing,. They're obviously all made by the  same local firm/person. This one commemorates the Carron Iron Works which I am coming to realise was a real driver of the Industrial Revolution in this part of Scotland; in fact Scotland as a whole. 

And, as we walked along the tow path many reminders that autumn is coming, if not in fact already here. 





For anyone interested, more info about the Kelpies, the Carron Iron Works and the Charlotte Dundas can be found via these links below





2 comments:

  1. Such beautiful sculptures!

    We’ve commented several times on how plentiful the Rowan berries are this year. Is it the sign of a hard winter to come?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think so. Very plentiful and started appearing relatively early as well. The bottom picture is rose hops and they were huge!

      Delete