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Again, courtesy of our Jim McCulloch's Friends and Family railway discount, we took a longer-distance jaunt on a train, this time to Dundee for a visit to Discovery Point, the museum dedicated to the RSS Discovery, which was the ship that carried Captain Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton on their first, and highly successful, journey to the Antarctic that set off from Dundee in 1901.
The lads, posing in front of the RRS Discovery in Dundee
The Discovery Point museum has lots of exhibits about Scotland's whaling history, shipbuilding in Dundee and of course, the RRS Discovery, which was built there, and the expeditions to the Antarctic. It also has a few short movies on show and some life-sized set pieces that give you an historic look at these things. It's well worth a wander around - there's loads to see and read.
Our naval-connection Tam, at the wheel!
Stuart, John and an old Bird
Once we'd seen all there was to see in the museum, the route leads you out to the ship itself, which you can board and wander around above and below decks to the officer's wardroom, the mess and much more. There's even a playroom set up for kids.
There was some renovation work being done in and around so you can't get everywhere but it's still a very interesting bit of our history that you can touch and feel and get a sense of what it'd have been like to live on. Life would have been pretty rough for those on board.
It's sitting in a dry dock just now and one of the men working on it said they used to take it out a few times a year but they can't do that any more now that it's been blocked in by the numpties that built the V&A Dundee right in front of its dock. I'm not sure if he was pulling our legs but looking at it, I can't see how they'd get it out of the dock without having to tip it over.
A close-up of the group photo for that "aaargh" feeling!
Once we'd done all the clambering about on the RRS Discovery that we could, we headed next door to the V&A Museum for a quick visit before heading back home.
Sadly, it was a bit disappointing. It is an impressive bit of Japanese-designed architecture but it did seem to be more style than content, the insides being mostly a vast open space. Entry is free to most of the exhibits but there just didn't seem to be that much to see. We did wander up the very long staircase to the café for a snack but it was very, very expensive and, if we'd had more time, I'm sure we'd have found a more reasonably-priced venue in town.
The name is a bit odd given Victoria and Albert visited Dundee only once in 1844 on their way to visit the Duke of Atholl and likely murder some Highland deer or grouse.
Among the exhibits
Antarctic Expeditions
Life-sized Shipbuilding
Again, many thanks to Jim McCulloch, without whom we'd not be able to fund such long-distance journeys to places like Oban or Dundee and which give us lots of time to sit and chat and get to know each other better. Also thanks again to Raymond Kerr for negotiating discounted tickets to Discovery Point for the group.
You can find out more about the Discovery Point and the RSS Discovery here:
...and you'll find information on V&A Dundee here:
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