Incholm Island is a small island in the Firth of Forth (estuary of the Forth River) that is home to a load of seals, birds, an Augustine Abbey and various Great War and WWII defences.
You can take boat trips there, which is what we did. We'd done it before, several years back. At the time I was just beginning my journey with photography. In fact, I was so new to the whole thing that I walked out the door without my camera and had to use Pamela's phone to take photos. My camera bag essentially became attached to me over the next few years so the idea of leaving the house on a day trip without it makes me laugh these days. I remember being pretty annoyed with myself at the time. Mainly at the idea of a potential day of practice going to waste.
I double checked that I had my bag with me before we set off.
There are two companies that take tours out to the island. These guys and these guys. We'd be going with the former this time having been with the latter the previous time. The decision was made because we had bought discounted tickets from Groupon. Neither company seems to offer too much that the other doesn't other than that tickets for Forth Belle can only be pre-purchased online while Maid of The Forth has a ticket booth onsite. I'm sure if you asked either company, however they'd be more than happy to list off the differences in service!
The boat leaves from the pier beside the amazing Forth Bridge in South Queensferry. As a photographer and the son of an engineer, I love a good bridge and can rarely resist photographing them when I get a chance. The Forth Bridge has to be up there with the best of them. I took the photo above after the boat trip when the weather had cleared up a bit. It had been a bit dull earlier in the day.
The boat has a mostly recorded narration throughout the tour. I was bit worried when we got an advert for Deep Sea World early on (disguised as narration) but thankfully that was the only time.
The route out is interesting. There are various islands between South Queensferry and Inchcolm Island with most having some military history attached to them.
This is a cool one and one that I'd love to get a closer look at at some point. Inchgarvie sits right at the edge of the bridge and they probably share the same rocks at the closest point. It has been lots of things in the past, including a prison, quarantine for plague victims and defences during the world wars. There doesn't seem to be any tours that visit the island so if I'm going there, I'll need to organise it myself. At the moment the idea is to jump out of a train window at the halfway point of the bridge and swim the short distance to the island. That may or may not change as time goes on as it would probably mean getting a new camera bag for the water-stage and I'm not made of money.
The river is also home to lots of modern industry and sights like this are common. The Forth flows into the North Sea which is where all the oil is so there are oil rigs and the accompanying machinery all up and down the east coast. I've always loved the industrial look. It's a triumph of function over fashion and I love the mishmash of pipes, valves and girders. It's another thing I'd like to spend a day on with my camera. This one is a bit too far from the bridge to jump to however so that one will need some imagination to work out.
Back to the boat:
When we'd got on the boat, Pamela had sat inside to escape the cold and I'd gone up to the small upstairs part. When I was up there, I had heard one of the crew remark that nobody had reserved any seats for the 'tour' (the ladies you can see on the right of the photo were part of an organised bus tour). The result of this was that Pamela got moved from her window seat to the middle of the boat to accommodate them and couldn't see anything on the way out. Mercifully (the group insisted on singing) they didn't join us on the island so weren't on the boat on the way back so we got a window seat on the return journey and Pamela finally got to see some stuff.
It's a small island with that only has room at the dock for one boat at a time. Anyone else wanting to dock here on their private boat has to do so in between the tour boats. And there's not much on it as far as modern facilities go. The abbey is the main attraction. There are some WWI and WWII defences. Toilets. And then a small museum/shop with a dozen or so seats that provide the only real shelter if you get bad weather, like we did.
So of course we started at the abbey. It's a great building and it's interesting to imagine how these guys lived their lives. Weirdly, apart from some walls that have fallen down, it probably didn't look all that different than it does now. They shunned any comfort and luxury so, if I remember correctly, only one room in the whole place had a fire place. It must've been freezing!
Being a military history fan, I had to get a look at all the World War defences. They were concerned about ships and submarines sailing up the Forth so added various defences in both the wars. There's not much left now but you can explore them a bit and find bunkers and tunnels. I can't imagine it being a particularly desirable post during the wars but then maybe anything away form the frontline is the one to hope for.
While out wandering about I came across the tunnel that stretches under the hill. I'm sort of an adult these days but I have to say that there was still a part of me that didn't want to go in. It's pitch black along the length of it and curves round so you can't see the light at the end of the tunnel. More than Zombie Nazis, what I was actually worried about was tripping or falling down a hole that I couldn't see. The light on my phone was useless so I took to using the flash on the camera to briefly light the way before continuing on once I could see there were no pits to fall into. I have to say that if someone had been coming the other way and I only realised when the flash had fired I might have made a bit of a mess in that tunnel.
Pamela bought me a military grade torch for my Christmas.
I was finally free of my living nightmare. Before I went back to get Pamela, who was sitting in the museum to escape the rain, I took a photograph of Edinburgh. Pretty much all of it. The island isn't far from the city and you get a great view from the river.
After that it was back to the boat for a songless trip back to Queensferry. With a few detours to check out the locals.
I've always thought that the Forth looks a bit dirty. Considering the traffic from large ships in the oil and gas industry, that's probably not surprising. Still, there are hundreds of these seals dotted about the area so there must be plenty of fish for them to survive. In fact as I was writing this blog, a story appeared about Humpback Whales in the stretch of water we were in.
The last part of the trip was to visit the newest bridge across the Forth. The Queensferry Crossing was to open the very next day. I did think that it would be good to sail under it one day and drive over it the next but stayed clear to avoid the inevitable traffic issues that would arise from the bridge's grand opening. Turned out to be a good decision as I think some people are still stuck in traffic there to this very day.
It's an impressive structure, though not as impressive as the original, I have to say. Bridges are great for photographers. It's a pity this one doesn't have a walkway so it's vehicle crossing only. I climbed the Sydney Harbour Bridge when down there. Their infrastructure is miles ahead of ours. The museum in Sydney is world class. I don't even think there is a museum for our bridges. Certainly not a purpose built one. The old bridge is a UNESCO site so it's surprising that there hasn't been the investment to capitalise on that. The area is always full of people there simply to see the bridges. Maybe it's in the pipeline.
Pam and I treated ourselves to tea and a Mars Bar for the journey back. The last photograph to take was of her. She threatened me with violence if I ever shared the first two photos I took there. In the first she was pulling a funny face and in the second I'd used a wide angle lens which had stretched her face out to a degree that she considered unflattering (those weren't the words she used at me).
I've done boat tours all over the world. It's clearly not the coolest thing I do, because the tours are always filled with tourists and old people. No one else I know ever does boat tours. But I like them and it lets you see places from an angle you wouldn't see day to day. Unless you work on the boat tours, of course. In this case, the tour really lets you appreciate the scale of the bridges that span the river.
Now all I need is a helicopter tour to be going cheap on Groupon and I'm all set.
