Friday 30 October 2015

Edinburgh City break

Rather than spend the whole of half term at home we decided to take a city break and the lure of a castle on top of a volcanic rock was too much to resist.  Edinburgh really is dominated by its castle...




...and rain.....it rained a lot on the morning we explored the castle...


It wasn't all gloomy - there were some spectacular views across Edinburgh from the very top...

 

 


And the formality of the firing of the world famous "one o'clock gun" was a piece of theatre in itself..

 


We climbed up  and down the hill and all around the castle - seriously is there an award for the hilliest city in the world?  Edinburgh has to be a strong contender...



So really felt we'd earned lots of cake at the end of the day....

 

 

Day two was brighter and a little sunnier so we headed slightly out of the city towards the Zoo...

In among the spectacular views back across the city...


We found baboons and formation zebra grazing...

 




Pygmy hippos and rhinos enjoying a bath (not together I hasten to add)

 

Hunting dogs and sun bears...

 

Wallabies and tigers...

 

There were also the considerably (for the UK) more unusual...like our only Koalas.... although as you can no doubt guess from their day time pose.....they are not the most exciting critters...

 


There was this rather scared-y looking Scottish wild cat. Part of a breeding programme to reintroduce them to the remotest part of the highlands -it did look like it couldn't wait to get there...


There were the completely unexpected...

 



But the star of the show was this chap....Yang Guang.  The UK's only male giant panda. We were lucky enough to see him awake  - he's only ever awake for a maximum 8 hours in 24, which means he eats VERY fast...



But the stars of our day out were the Merecats.  Who were taking full advantage of exploring the Halloween jack-o-lanterns in their enclosure...

 

 

After all that exploring we felt we'd earned our evening treats again...

 

 

Sunday arrived and started with the best weather of the long weekend (grrrrr) and as we all had to return to work, or school, on Monday, we had no choice but to head home.  Thank fully we had some great views - north of York at least - to entertain us....

 


 







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