Woolly says – I’d woken to rose coloured clouds and blue skies in Dundee.

Dundee is the fourth largest city in Scotland and lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firth of Tay, which feeds into the North Sea.

Within the boundaries of the historic county of Angus, the city developed into a burgh in the late 12th century and established itself as an important east coast trading port. Rapid expansion was brought on by the Industrial Revolution, particularly in the 19th century when Dundee was the centre of the global jute industry. This, along with its other major industries, gave Dundee its epithet as the city of “jute, jam and journalism”. With the decline of traditional industry, the city has adopted a plan to regenerate and reinvent itself as a cultural centre.

In 2014, Dundee was recognised by the United Nations as the UK’s first UNESCO City of Design for its diverse contributions to fields including medical research, comics and video games. Since 2015 Dundee’s international profile has grown, GQ magazine named Dundee the “Coolest Little City in Britain” and The Wall Street Journal ranked Dundee at number 5 on its “Worldwide Hot Destinations” list for 2018.

I was more excited to find out what the waterfront had to offer. With free parking on a Sunday until 1pm we parked up near to the first of points of interest and led Handsome Jack lead the way along the promenade that runs along the river. There was lots to see, Jo snapped away with the camera as we spotted a lovely statue under her own canopy, before looking at both of the bridges, one to the right and one to the left.

All sorts of things appeared along the route from memorial plagues, a huge metal sculpture of a whale with water fountains beside it.

One of Dundee’s best tourist’s attractions came into view with its high rigging and covered hull, RRS Discovery is a barque-rigged auxiliary steamship built in Dundee, for Antarctic research. Launched in 1901, she was the last traditional wooden three-masted ship to be built in the United Kingdom. Her first mission was the British National Antarctic Expedition, carrying Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton on their first, and highly successful, journey to the Antarctic, known as the Discovery Expedition. She was rather splendid even if covered in tarpaulins.

Next to her was the V&A design museum which was so modern in contrast to her ship neighbour, although designed as a ship shape that was where the difference ended, it was wonderful in design. As we walked around it the shapes changed, a delight.

On we walked seeing a beautiful sign covered in all things blue, plenty of tourist information boards and many other things, the place was a gold mine of discovery.

Passing under the bridge we headed down a row of houses arriving at a thing that I was more than excited to see. I stood gazing at her black hull and strange roof before racing to admire her even the black and white furry one stopped sniffing the pavement and stood looking at her. We walked round the outside and then crossed the bridge into the quay to see her from the other side, magnificent.

HMS Unicorn is a surviving sailing frigate of the successful Leda class, she is the oldest ship in Scotland, and one of the oldest in the world. HMS Unicorn was built in peacetime at Chatham Dockyard, Kent and launched in 1824. As Unicorn was built shortly after the naval wars against Napoleon ended, she was never rigged; a superstructure was built over her main deck and she was laid up “in ordinary”, serving as a hulk and a depot ship for most of the next 140 years. In 1857, she was loaned to the War Department for use as a floating gunpowder store at the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich, returning to her original berth at Sheerness in 1863. Her lack of sea service meant that her hull remained in good condition and in 1873 was selected to be a drill ship for the Royal Naval Reserve at Dundee, in both World Wars she was the Area Headquarters of the Senior Naval Officer, during the Second World War she also acted as training centre for the Women’s Royal Naval Service and more than 1,500 women trained there. Today the main aim is to restore and keep her intact. I raced up the gangplank and into the Gun Deck.

It was huge, I mean ginormous, it was going to take me weeks to walk round, the humans and mutt started to wander round, I admired the wheel that had taken four men to operate before looking at each display, there were plagues that were beautifully painted, in fact loads to look at.

The guns were impressive to say the least, another place that Sion would adore.

We headed up to the upper deck which had information on the more modern uses the ship had been put to.

The captain’s cabin was massive, and all set up for an evening of drinks with the officers, two doors at the rear were for his sanitary needs alone, the rest of the ships 200 crew shaared one loo at the bow end.

The crew’s mess was next to visit, one floor below the gun deck, where benches filled the space for meals and hammocks the rest for sleep.

Down to the orlop deck we went, this didn’t feel so great and wasn’t helped by the smallest human, Jo, having to bend almost double to walk around let alone the up close view of the timbers of the boat.

We quickly headed upwards and back down the plank which was when I noticed another ship in the other corner of the quay. This was a light house ship, one of very few left in the world, but I had been lucky enough to see one of her sister shops in Gloucester Docks. This one was in terrible state, hopefully someone might come along and save her soon.

We paused for some brunch before heading into the city centre admiring the building and architecture at every point.

There were two things that we wanted to look at and within minutes we had found the first, St. Paul’s Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in the city of Dundee. In 1847, Alexander Penrose Forbes was elected new Bishop of Brechin and chose to make Dundee his permanent residence.

At the time of Bishop Forbes’ arrival, St. Paul’s Chapel met in rooms in nearby Castle Street, which Forbes considered to be dreary and “unworthy of the worship of the Almighty”. Thus, he “urged his people to take on the holy work of building, to the glory of God, a stately church”, a place which would offer refuge to the many poor that lived in the surrounding tenements. The foundation stone of the cathedral was laid on 21st July 1853 and it was completed in 1855 We climbed up the steps into the cathedral to find people everywhere, we were welcomed in and offered refreshments which is a first for a quick look inside that we do. The service had just finished, and everyone took us to their hearts pointing out some of the incredible stained glass windows.

The huge arches rose up to a wooden ceiling, and the altar was beautiful. Not wishing to intrude we thanked everyone we could and hit the streets again on the search for our next thing on the list.

Jo spotted him first and called out, I raced behind her to see one of my heroes.

Desperate Dan is a wild west character in the now defunct Scottish comic magazine The Dandy. He made his appearance in the first issue which was dated 4^th December 1937 and became the magazine’s mascot. He is apparently the world’s strongest man, able to lift a cow with one hand. The pillow of his (reinforced) bed is filled with building rubble and his beard is so tough he shaves with a blowtorch.

The character was created by Dudley D. Watkins, originally as an outlaw or ‘desperado’ (hence his name), but evolved into a more sympathetic type, using his strength to help the underdog. Desperate Dan’s final appearance left his fate ambiguous after being caught in an oil well explosion. Having taken lots of snaps with the big man himself, we set off back to the car and the long drive onwards.

Jo however had a planned break stop on route which she was being very mysterious about. Forty minutes into our journey she told driver Zoe to turn and follow the signs for Kirriemuir.  

Kirriemuir, sometimes called Kirrie or the Wee Red Toon, is a burgh in Angus, Scotland, and for me it had been the birthplace of two of my heroes.

Woolly says – Pulling up into a carpark we followed her along a stream to another car park which seemed a strange place to take us until she pointed to a statue at the entrance. Zoe, Corgi features and I looked blanky at her, ‘Its Bon Scott’ she announced, none the wiser we moved forward, the handsome one took a bit of dislike to the life size statue and started to growl, I was still a bit flummoxed until Zoe pointed out an information board.

Bon Scott spent his early years in Kirriemuir, moving to Australia with his family in 1952 at the age of six, living in Melbourne for four years before settling in Fremantle, Western Australia, then Adelaide, South Australia in his later years. Scott formed his first band, the Spektors, in 1964 and became the band’s drummer and occasional lead vocalist. He performed in several other bands, including the Valentines and Fraternity, before replacing original AC/DC lead singer Dave Evans in 1974.

With AC/DC Scott performed on the band’s first seven albums which included hits like A Whole lot of Rosie and Highway to Hell. Having seen AC/DC twice in 1979 I was heartbroken when his death was announced on 19th February 1980, Scott died after a night out in London with former musician and alleged drug dealer Alistair Kinnear.

Woolly says – Once Jo had finishing taking pictures, we headed through the town admiring the red sandstone buildings.

We arrived a few minutes later at the home of another famous person, this time once the humans had given me a clue I guessed correctly. The playwright J. M. Barrie had been born and buried here, we passed the statue of Peter Pan in hi memory and headed to his house.

The low white building held a treasure trove of information and artefacts from his life including his books, even Jo had know idea he had written so many.

The kitchen and bedrooms that he had once used were beautifully presented.

Outside was the washroom where he had first presented his plays which was next to the garden he had played in as a child. The garden now was home to a large croc which ticked quite alarmingly.

With both famous people honoured we headed back to the car and the drive onwards into the highlands and past the lochs. The scenery was stunning, and it was difficult to know where to look first.

Finally arriving at our home for the next two nights a small cabin in the woods which would suit me nicely.