So where were we? Oh, yes. At the end of the yellow brick road. But the wizard of Oz was out, so on we went...
Suddenly, everything went dark.
It turned out that the light at the end of the tunnel was an oncoming boat.
When we emerged from the other end, it appeared that we weren't in Kansas anymore.
At first glance, it looked as if we'd run out of canal.
In a sense, we had. For we had reached [cue dramatic music] The Wheel Of Falkirk!!!
Better known as The Falkirk Wheel.
"Well, that was nice", said Mrs Farty. "Now where's the café?"
Just as we were sitting down with our tea and scones, I glanced out of the window.
"Holy crap, a flying boat!!!"
"The brochure said something about gondolas," said Mrs Farty without batting an eyelid, as another behemoth dropped past us.
<science bit>
"Yes, apparently that's what they call the buckets that carry the boats. As one gondola goes up with its cargo, another comes down. It's all so finely balanced that it only takes the power of an electric kettle to drive it. And at five minutes from start to finish, it's much faster than the eleven locks that used to connect the Union Canal to the Forth and Clyde Canal, which leads to nothing of interest except maybe Glasgow."
</science bit>
What do you want, a 25-second video? *sigh* Very well...
Then we went for a poke around the shop before heading home. Luckily, we didn't get caught in a traffic jam.