Day 1
We travelled the 62 miles from Edinburgh to Dundee in the early afternoon. We checked in and we were really pleased with our room.
The view from our window was of the Weavers Mill restaurant next door and KFC, McDonalds and Nando's - very handy for breakfast and evening meals! We ate in the Weavers Mill that evening from the "Golden Years" menu - 2 courses for £4.79 👍 then visited the casino in town - no luck unfortunately but this sign just outside of the casino made us laugh
Day 2
After breakfast we spent quite a few hours in the Camperdown Wildlife Park only a few minutes away from our Premier Inn.
There are 3 large childrens playground areas to one side and the Wildlife Centre on the other side.
We paid £5 each (concession) to enter and wandered round the huge area looking at all the wild and sometimes endangered species of animals. We found it very interesting and as the sun was out it was a very enjoyable experience.
After breakfast we took the bus into the City Centre and walked through the Overgate shopping centre and found the statues of Desperate Dan, his dog (Dawg) and Minnie the Minx.
Walked along another street and found a statue of Oor Wullie with a poem by his side written to Rabbie Burns (there is a statue of Burns not far from where Wullie is sitting).
We then walked down to the waterfront (river Tay) and visited Discovery Point https://www.rrsdiscovery.co.uk/ This is a self-led museum where you go at your own pace looking at exhibits and watching short films about polar exploration.
After we had completed the museum we walked over to Captain Scott's ship, Discovery, which was moved to Dundee in 1992 and moored in a custom built dock. In 1901 Captain Robert Falcon Scott set sail in Discovery to explore Antarctica and spent two long harsh winters there with his ship frozen in the ice before returning in 1904 to a hero's welcome.
In 1909 Scott returned to Antarctica to try to reach the South Pole in a ship called the Terra Nova but sadly a Norwegian explorer, Roald Amundsen, beat him to it and Scott with his companions sadly perished on the journey back to their ship. The bodies of Scott and his companions were discovered by a search party on 12 November 1912 and their records retrieved. Tryggve Gran* was part of the search party. Their final camp became their tomb; the tent roof was lowered over the bodies and a high cairn of snow was erected over it, topped by a roughly fashioned cross, erected using Gran's skis.
* When we were in Cruden Bay north of Aberdeen about a week ago we came across a monument to Tryggve Gran - on 30 July 1914, Gran became the first pilot to cross the North Sea. Taking off in his Blériot XI-2 monoplane, Ca Flotte, from Cruden Bay, Scotland, Gran landed 4 hours 10 minutes later at Jæren, near Stavanger, Norway, after a flight of 320 miles (510 km).The restored, but complete and original plane is on display at the Norwegian Technical Museum in Oslo, Norway.
We then walked back up into town and had a meal before catching the bus back to our Premier Inn. Went to bingo and the casino at night - no luck.
Day 4
After breakfast we took the bus into the city centre and arrived just in time for our pre-booked time slot at the V&A museum.
The outside and the inside of the building are stunning but to be brutally honest we were not impressed with the contents of the museum at all. To be fair some of the galleries were temporarily closed for "some exciting new objects to be installed" and we didn't pay to enter the "Night Fever" exhibition which was all about club culture and didn't interest us but there was a section that we thought was highly unsuitable for a museum. It was excerpts from a young Dundonian girl's diary from the early 1990s.
Caught the bus back to our Premier Inn and picked up the car and drove to Broughty Ferry. We walked down to the water and along to the beach but by this time it was raining so we sheltered for a while before finding somewhere for our evening meal.
At night we went to bingo where I won a full house for £80 and a double line for £20. Visited the casino and came out in profit breaking almost even for our 4 night trip 😀
Day 5
Had breakfast in the Weavers Mill again, checked out and drove home.
We thoroughly enjoyed our trip to Dundee and the weather was kind to us right up until our visit to Broughty Ferry!