A day trip to Bonnie Dundee

Nice morning, bit of a long lie before heading off towards Dundee. Over the Forth Road Bridge, then decided to take the scenic route along the A91 towards St Andrews, through Auchtermuchty, a nice run, not as fast as the motorway but nice and steady.

Eventually came up over the hill and had a lovely view of Dundee before crossing the Road Bridge, built in 1966 and 7365 feet long, the longest in the country at the time and built to save a round trip of fifty miles. There was a massive oil rig in the Harbour obviously being worked on.

Lots of roadworks around the city centre so I had to go round a few roundabouts, the long way, till I eventually got to the Tayside Police H Q in Bell Street. Short stop and then headed off back to the Perth Road but stopped at the car park by the River Tay at Discovery Point.

The Ship, Discovery built in 1901, with a bulkhead twenty six inches thick, which Captain Scott sailed to the Antarctic in is a popular visitor attraction. At the end of the 19th Century there were around three hundred sailing ships trading out of Dundee harbour, and more from Perth Harbour further inland along the Tay.

On the side of the walkway nearby is the bronze plaque commemorating the non stop flight of Mercury, a seaplane from Dundee to Alexander Bay, South Africa, a distance of 6041 nautical miles. The plane left on 6th October 1938, and to save fuel was lifted into the air, piggy back style by a much larger seaplane. Pilot was DC Bennett and the 1st Officer Ian Harvey.

Near to the plaque is the Alexander Fountain which was presented to the City by the Lord Provost and named after Alexander Bay where the plane crash landed.

To the west is the Tay Rail Bridge, built in 1878, however there was a terrible storm on December 1879 when the centre spans collapsed while a train was crossing taking the train and passengers to a watery grave.


Headed home the quick way, along the dual carriageway, over the Friarton Bridge at Perth and onto the M 90 south to Edinburgh and Penicuik.

Home, for a quiet day, managed a good swim and a session in the steam room, but then ended up at The Bush, going apoplectic with folks about the cars lying around, semi abandoned, following yet more complaints. They have a cheek, knowing that they could not do the same on their own door steps - but happy to do it around their workplace.

Tried to get a hold of someone at Midlothian Council, via the switchboard - to discover that they had retired some time ago unknown to some of the staff - how many more are AWOL.

More on the Tramworks, the former boss of TIE, Willie Gallacher, who quit after seven and a half months is to get a bonus of £41, 000 ( £270 a day) from the public kitty. His bosses say that he did a good job while he was there !!! I am sure he blooming well knew he was in for a bonus when he packed in - yet another greedy sod working within the system.

AND despite that there are calims that the 1st phase of the works are nearly finished, there are tenders out for a company to start 6000 metres of new work with the utilities in Leith. Leith Walk still has 60% of the work to do despite being in a state of constant upheaval for over two years.

No bowling tonight, despite the fact it is a nice evening - had to get my jobs done, and feet up before my Runcorn and Birmingham run in the morning