Edinburgh Trip Day 1
11.19pm – Sitting on the hotel stairs waiting for everyone to go to sleep and trying not to go to sleep myself!
Day 1 is complete and we hope that we have 48 happy campers! We had great weather all the way down and it looked like the forecasters had got it wrong again …. But the skies finally opened as one half were walking to the bowling for their 7pm start while we waited to go to the cinema for our 8.20pm start. At least by the time our groups left for the cinema it was dry again!
The day got off to a disappointing start when one of the Strichen pupils had to call off because of illness at the last moment. We hope he will be better soon and hopefully he will enjoy looking at the thousands of photos that have been taken!
By 9.30 when we pulled out of Longside School we were on time but this was not to last long as we had several fresh air stops for one poor pupil who was feeling sick. We made it to Aberdeen and had a bit of a detour though the city until the driver finally said he did not really know Aberdeen that well and what was the best way to go!
Our fist stop was supposed to be Laurencekirk School for a toilet stop but even this proved difficult as the narrow main street was blocked by road works and some considerate parking by a van driver. Having sat for quite a while the road works lorry eventually decided to reverse back to allow us through.
We were now chasing our tail and we did not make it down to Deep Sea World until about 1.45 and we were booked for a classroom talk for three of the groups at 2.00! So after a quick lunch we were off on our first real visit. The children really enjoyed looking in all the tanks, having a short classroom session about sharks and then down to the underwater tunnel to see the fish being fed by the divers as they kept a close watch on the circling sharks. Of course we had to visit the shop and some of them managed to expertly work out what they could get for their £5 while some headed right for the ……. sweeties!
By 3.50pm we were off again and we were soon heading across the Forth Road Bridge. The city was not overly busy and between the driver and myself we managed to find the hotel. We then had to unload all the cases – and I think some must have packed for a week by the weight of them. However, all was to be revealed when quite a lot of them changed for going out at night so at my reckoning some of them must have 8 different outfits with them!
The larger group went bowling and we do not really know how they got on as they were all in bed by the time we got back from the cinema at 10.20pm! The film we saw was called ‘Son of Rambo’ and was a pleasant surprise and the children all seemed to enjoy the comic capers of the two stars.
Tomorrow, or today if you are reading this, we are going to the Castle and Murrayfield with hopefully a walk down the Royal Mile in between. Hopefully we will get some comments from the children for tomorrow’s entry….. if we can get logged onto the network that is!
Anyway, enjoy the peace and quiet – you still have three days of it left.
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