One man and his boat

The release of a Ewan MacGregor film following the fortunes of a dysfunctional man travelling onthe canal between Edinburgh and Glasgow has prompted us to send our Ewan MacGregorlookalike, Maxwell MacLeod, on the same journey. This is his story

So, picture it if you will... It's mid-August, and you are sitting beside the Edinburgh to Glasgow canal, on the first leg, the 31 mile long Union canal. The sun beats down like a hammer, and many Scots are responding by, well, getting hammered.

And there's laughing children pointing at a strange apparition that is appearing out of the heat haze.

It's a middle aged balding man sitting in a beautiful wooden skiff that is no bigger than a bath. He's rowing gently but only achieving a speed that could be outpaced by any self-respecting duck.

Who is this eccentric oars person? Alunatic? No gentle reader, it's worse than that. 'Tis this canal correspondent of Scotland Magazine and he has taken it into his head to row from Edinburgh to Glasgow to evaluate the £80 million project that has led to the canal's re-opening.

The trip will take three days. Climb aboard.

The first day of the three day voyage was almost comical in its awfulness. The canal starts behind the beer factory in Edinburgh's Fountainbridge, 10 minutes walk from Princes Street.

Lordie what a horrible place it is. Green slime on the water. Drowned Martians everywhere (the canal-side dwellers’ name forsemi-submerged blue rubbish bags) and your canal correspondent wishing he had stuck to teaching.

Luckily the reason the slum-locked Fountainbridge end is so smelly is simply that it's so sheltered that the water has no chance of moving. After half an hour of seriously focused sculling, the rower finds he is rowi.....

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By Maxwell MacLeod

Section : Scottish Journeys

Page number : 31