Fringe benefits

Living in Scotland has certain drawbacks - the mediocre weather, the ever present threat posed by Bucky swilling neds and so on... - but luckily it does mean that we are close to one of Britain's most exciting events: the Edinburgh Festival. Technically that should really be the Edinburgh Festivals as there are several running concurrently, but for simplicity's sake we'll stick with the singular.

[Please note, these are not my videos, just embedded ones from www.youtube.com]



Anyway, this year we managed to earmark a couple of weekends to make the quick trip down to ol' Reekie to try to catch the odd show or seven (the odder the better usually), eat our bodyweight in curry and soak up a bit of the atmosphere.

Leaving immediately after work (Tracy's work that is - I'm still on holiday heh heh heh) we jumped on a train and got in to Edinburgh by about 7pm. We checked in to the hostel and immediately set out in search of Jason Byrne's venue. As we passed several venues we remarked upon the length of the queues before arriving at our desination - only to find we'd just walked past it, had remarked upon the length of the queue, and we now had to climb the hilll we'd just decended. Isn't it ironic. Don't you think? Anyway, despite the fact we were right up the back with a restricted view, we still enjoyed the show and had a good time nevertheless. That night we stopped by Ann Purna for dinner and had some lovely curry and beer (well, I had some lovely beer anyway :D).


[Kevin Eldon is the chap with the dark hair on the right]

Saturday we managed to see Kevin Eldon, David Strassman and Mark Watson (individually, not concurrently) with Kevin's solo show being a particular highlight. Saturday also saw more curry, coffee, bagel, guinness and (if memory serves) more beer.



Sunday we had free, so spent the day wandering about and soaking up the festival atmosphere. Sunday was sadly lacking in curry, but we hope to make up for that next time we visit the capital in a fortnight's time.

Aviemore

For our 12th wedding anniversary, we decided to spend the weekend in Aviemore. We'd booked this a few months in advance and only found out later that the Friday night we'd be there, there was an open evening at the Highland Wildlife Park. We were invited because we sponsor animals at Edinburgh Zoo, and we couldn't believe the timing!

So on the Friday we got to Aviemore as quickly as we could and hightailed it over to the HWP. It was a lovely evening with plenty of visitors there, and some of the animals were more visible than they usually are when we visit. We were especially thrilled to see one of the beavers swimming about and eating leaves in full view of us visitors; he must have been out for 20 minutes before a loud child frightened him into hiding in his lodge. I wanted to smack that child!

On a very sad note, we were gutted to hear that Yuri, the male adult tiger we’ve been visiting possibly as long as we’ve been married, is drinking far more water than he should. Based on this indication that he is unwell and the fact that he is actually older than tigers usually live in the wild, we were told that he could be euthanised within the next few months if he is deemed to be in a lot of pain.

Meanwhile as part of the open evening, there was a silent auction of various items, including a tiger experience in which the winners could get closer to the tigers. I was determined to give Chris, who is especially fond of Yuri, a chance to get closer to Yuri and the other tigers so I made sure we won the tiger experience. I also got us the “adopt any animal and meet the keeper” experience so we could learn more about the red pandas. As luck would have it, we were told we could have both of our experiences on Sunday, our anniversary! We couldn’t wait.

On Saturday, we spent some time at the RSPB’s osprey centre at Loch Garten. We were thrilled to find out that the three osprey chicks have all fledged but are still in Loch Garten. They’ll all fly to Africa in the next few weeks, but for now they’re still visible from the visitor centre. It’s a lovely centre staffed by people who really care about the ospreys and know everything about these particular birds. They’re amazing creatures, the birds and the staff!

From there, we visited the cake shop at the Inshraich Nursery. We consumed cake and tea while viewing the many birds and squirrels at the feeding stations in front of a long viewing window. It is so lovely there, and the wildlife viewing is truly hypnotic. It was only the sound of more and more customers arriving (and the knowledge that there aren’t enough seats at the window for everyone) that prompted us to surrender our places and depart!

We then spent a few hours walking around the very scenic Loch an Eilein. There were other visitors dotted around, but it was so peaceful and lovely. We especially enjoyed the various dogs who were there with other visitors but were willing to trot along with us for a while. Cute! We capped off the lovely day with delicious curry at our favourite Indian restaurant in Aviemore and a sighting of one of the Loch Garten ospreys flying over the B&B with a big fish in his/her talons!

The next day was all about our animal experiences at the HWP. First we met the keepers at the tiger enclosure. We got close to the tigers in their indoor enclosure, where they’d been locked in so that meat could be placed in various spots in their outdoor enclosure. It was thrilling but unnerving to be so close to them inside the enclosure. They are so huge and gorgeous. We wanted to reach right through the bars and pet them, but the keepers thankfully kept us right. We then helped distribute the huge hunks of meat around the large outdoor enclosure, not a pleasant task but certainly an interesting one! Then we were safely outside the enclosure when the tigers were allowed back outside, but we had a close vantage point for watching them. All of this lasted for about an hour and a half, but it felt much longer than that. And we were much relieved to learn that Yuri doesn’t seem to be in any pain for now. We sincerely hope that he’ll get better.

We then had our red panda experience. The keepers of the tigers and the red pandas were so nice to us, telling us so much about the animals and getting us as close to the animals as safely possible. For the red pandas, we got to help put apples slices throughout the enclosure, and then the main keeper tried so hard to get the pandas to come down from up in the trees so we could feed them. The pandas were looking down at us but didn’t feel like moving. The keeper was so patient; she tried for about half an hour before it was time for us to head back to the tigers. The red pandas are gorgeous, and just being that much closer to them was well worth the experience!

When we got back to the tigers, it was time to assist the keepers in examining the tigers for any obvious injuries/problems. We were each given a stick with a bit of meat on the end, and we took turns luring a tiger into standing up against the mesh wall of the enclosure. While each tiger stood up with his/her paws against the mesh, the keepers could check their paws and bellies. The tigers, even the cubs, are HUGE. It was surreal indeed to have a huge cat standing up right in front of me, with only a seemingly thin sheet of wire mesh separating us. The keepers were kind enough to take pictures of us with the tigers, and here we are with Yuri:



We were delighted with our tiger and red panda experiences. It was so special to get so close to such gorgeous creatures, very special indeed. It was certainly an anniversary to remember. Thank you, Highland Wildlife Park!

Denmark - July 2010

To start Iff's six-week summer holiday, we spent a couple weeks in Denmark. In keeping with our "no fixed address" plan, we got there without flying. Woo-hoo!

We got the train from Aberdeen to Newcastle and a bus out to the overnight ferry. We managed to sleep for 14 hours on the ferry, waking up when we docked at Amsterdam. We got a bus into Amsterdam and had a lovely day walking around. Highlights included all the footie decorations (the World Cup was going on), the lovely zoo (with a junior elephant!) and aquarium (with eels - boooooooo) and hanging out in a park where local talents sang such varied songs as the theme song from "Duck Tales"...surreal. Then we grabbed dinner stuff from a grocery store before getting on the late, overnight train to Copenhagen.

We were in Copenhagen for five days, and the first three days we ran ourselves ragged seeing all the touristy stuff. We had a lovely time despite all the mobs of tourists (locals too perhaps!) and high price tags on everything. We found some really gorgeous veggie cafes and lovely parks to relax in. One of our highlights was resting in the Kongens Have after a day of walking our feet off; we found a group of violinists practicing in a corner of the garden, so we laid down on the grass and enjoyed the music. It was beautiful. Tivoli was as charming as all the guidebooks led us to expect. The people we encountered in Copenhagen were so nice and helpful, which we really appreciated. In the last couple days there, we ventured out of the city to places like the Danmarks Akvarium, which was small but amazing. All in all, we had a great time and managed by the end to find a balance between seeing "everything" and just relaxing. Lovely.

Then it was time for Jutland. We hopped on a train to Aarhus, where we picked up an adorable wee convertible for exploring the island. We headed first to Mariager, a wee fjord town north of Aarhus. It was so lovely! Its cobbled streets, wonky houses and abundant roses charmed me to no end. I could have stayed there forever. Alas, we had other places on our itinerary, so we headed on to Skagen and Grenen way up in the north. There we hit the lovely beaches. It was so hot, and the water felt gorgeous! But the real highlight beach-wise came next, when we headed to Rubjerg Knude Fyr, a giant sand dune with an abandoned lighthouse in it. The sand was so soft and clean, and from on top of the dune it seemed like we could see the whole world. Glorious!!! All the water around the dune sparkled, and Chris had a ball hurling himself off the top of the dune, rolling down all the sand to the ground below. We LOVED it. Thank you to Mogens for the tip!

We then hightailed it to the hostel we’d booked in Nykobing Mors. We were running late, especially after the “bridge” short cut we thought we could take turned out to be a ferry which wasn’t running then. We couldn’t find a pay phone anywhere and were frantic to phone the hostel to arrange a later check-in. (At another Danish hostel we’d stayed in, we saw some people arrive after check-in; they had to sleep in their car!) We finally asked in a shop where the nearest pay phone was. The woman there laughed but luckily was kind enough to let us use her phone, and the woman at the hostel agreed to leave our keys out for us. Whew! We arrived at the hostel just in time to watch the final World Cup game and cheer on Spain.

The next morning we thought to go for a swim; our hostel was right on the beach. But we saw lots of jellyfish and even a surly-looking crab in the water so just took some pictures instead. We then headed to the nearby, medieval Spottrup Castle with its gorgeous medieval-style herb garden and rose trellis garden. The whole place smelled like herbs and roses, and there were loads of bright blue dragonflies hovering over the moat. It was utterly charming. But then it was time for the reason we’d come to Denmark: Kai!

Kai is our favourite rhino. He was born in Edinburgh Zoo, and we watched him grow up enough to challenge the authority of his parents and then get shipped off to Denmark’s Givskud Zoo. We visited him there a few years later and were delighted to see him in a really big, gorgeous savannah enclosure with other rhinos and antelope-type animals. That was several years ago, and in the years since then we’ve wondered how he’s doing and whether he might even be a dad. It was time to find out! We got to the zoo and went straight to the rhino enclosure. There were six gorgeous rhinos out there, but we didn’t know which one was Kai. There wasn’t a keeper around who we could ask, but we took a guess and were happy to see that all of the rhinos seemed to be in a great place. We were really happy with the state of things and decided not to seek out information in case we heard something that would burst the bubble!

The next day we went to Legoland. We were drawn to it because Legos are Danish and we’d heard that there are really cute Lego sculptures to be seen there. Are there ever! There’s a whole area full of Lego models of landmarks from all over the world, many of them with moving parts. There are Lego sculptures all throughout the park and really cute rides as well. We had a ball!

The next day we had nothing planned, so we decided to go see Kai again. This time we were there for a talk by a rhino keeper. The talk was in Danish, and there were lots of other visitors there. We waited until the talk ended and the other visitors had gone, then we asked the keeper which rhino was Kai. Luckily she spoke excellent English, but we were gutted when she explained that because Kai and another rhino don’t get along well, they are separated and take turns being outside each day; today was Kai’s turn to stay inside the rhino house while all the other rhinos were outside. We were especially gutted when we realised that two days ago when we visited the zoo, Kai wasn’t outside either; we’d missed him during both days we visited the zoo, and we were leaving tomorrow before the zoo would even open!

It turned out that Kai is this keeper’s favourite rhino, however, and she could tell how gutted we were. We explained that we’d come from Scotland and planned our whole holiday around seeing Kai. She was so moved by this, she snuck us into the rhino house to see Kai! We couldn’t believe it! Our baby rhino now weighs two tons! He was delighted to see the keeper; he knows her by sight and recognises her voice and was happy to put his head through the bars to be petted and to eat the apples she had for him. She even let us feed him some apples and scratch him behind the ears! She stressed that they do not cuddle the animals in the zoo, but she’s allowed to pet and feed him enough that he trusts her and lets her get close when he needs to be examined.

We couldn’t believe our luck in getting so close to him. Our little baby rhino has grown so much, but he’s still like a little boy. He threw a wee tantrum each time the keeper paid more attention to us than to him, stomping all around his enclosure. The rest of the time we were with him, though, he had his tail curled up, and the keeper explained that he does this when he’s happy, just like a pig does! And the rhino he’s being kept separate from is a young girl rhino (two thirds the size of him) who attacks him when he gets near her! He’s only being friendly! Hopefully she’ll chill out soon. He’s not a father yet, but hopefully that will change in the near future. When it was time for us to leave the rhino house, I couldn’t thank the keeper enough. It was such a special experience, and I’m thrilled to know he’s in such good hands.

The next day, still giddy from our Kai experience, we went back to Aarhus to return the car and spend our last night in Denmark. Aarhus is a lovely town, smaller and less crowded than Copenhagen. We relaxed there until the next morning, when we caught a train back to Copenhagen. We had the afternoon there, so we mostly relaxed in Kongens Have. We got the overnight train back to Amsterdam and whiled away a few pleasant hours there. We watched a boys’ football tournament in one of the main squares and browsed a big, colourful market, where we picked up dinner stuff for the ferry. Then it was a bus back to the ferry, the overnight ferry back to Newcastle and finally the train back to Aberdeen.

The two weeks went by quickly, but we had a great time. We’re already looking forward to a return trip!