We reserved the first slot for a guided tour of Brodie castle last night. That slot is at 1030, so we are in no hurry today. Hurry or no hurry, Tim is awake at 6.00 and reads a book while the rest sleeps until 7.30. It pours with rain and we are really glad to be warm and dry. We give our car a deep clean, it needed some love after three weeks camping/roadtripping.
We visited Brodie castle last year but skipped the guided tour because of time constraints. What we did enjoy was the large garden with an enormous and varied play area. We wanted to go early and play but it’s no fun in the rain. So we arrive at the castle at 10.15, browse the shop and head to the start of the guided tour. We are the first to arrive and hide in the doorway against the rain. It looks like we’ll have a private tour until it’s 10.30 and the guide arrives, people keep coming in and when we start we are with 21.
The children get a lego figures treasure hunt to share. They have done one in Culzean castle before and are very enthusiastic. There are multiple figures per room so they search while the guide tells the history of the castle and the clan Brodie. The castle was the seat of the head of the clan, Brodie of Brodie. A few rooms in, a visitor complains to Olga about the noise of the kids (although they whisper, it still distracts). Olga takes Zeno and leaves the tour, while Tim and Cleo continue the tour.
The same woman is so frustrated, that although Cleo was as quiet as possible in finding the remaining lego figurines, she finds it necessary to tell Cleo that she should be quiet when the guide speaks as she has paid for the tour. Luckily there are also people who want to help Cleo and lift her up to find the figures.
We reunite with Zeno and Olga in the playground and enjoy all the different attractions. The rain stopped. The kids dress up as princesses, play on the xylophone and climb a unicorn, there are many unicorns in Scotland as it’s their national animal.
We give the Lidl another try for our weekly shopping, and it’s open today, there’s nothing left of yesterdays lorry fire. After our lunch Olga does the laundry while the kids enjoy the playground and Tim assembles his snorkeling gear and checks out the beach. It’s even warm and sunny now.
The children join Tim and start building sand castles while Tim puts on his new diving glasses together with his wetsuit and flippers. Will there be more dolphines today? Sadly there is not much to see, it’s low tide and he has to wade for miles before the sea is more than knee deep. At least the new diving glasses work well and the sea here is much warmer than the ocean on the other side. That’s the difference between the cold Atlantic ocean and the warm North Sea.
Our park is beautifully situated next to the beach, the town and on the side of our caravan starts a large pine forest all along the coast. We explore it and go on a small hike, soaking up all the sun we got at the end of the day.
