Friday 5th December 2025

Up early as we needed to be on the outskirts of Perth by 8:30am to get the annual hab check for the van.

We pulled into Dicksons of Perth at 8:10am and after a bit of thinking realised we should be at their after sales dept a short drive away.

We handed over the van and headed through the mist into Perth town centre.

Breakfast in Bob and Bert’s - I went for their festive berry french toast with a flat white and it was very nice, definitely worth it.

Gayle had gluten-free toast and bacon and poached eggs with tea which she was very happy with.

We had several hours to kill so we wandered around the centre of Perth - there’s some really nice delis and bakeries…definitely worth a return but we didn’t want to have to carry stuff around for several hours so notes were taken

Eventually we found our way into the Perth Museum, it’s great…they even have a pretty impressive display of the Stone of Destiny with an animated short showing an interpretation of the first coronation.

I was struck by the (relative) lack of carving on the stone and the mystical power that’s attributed to it, definitely worth a visit.

Just as we were finishing up in the museum my phone rang and we headed back to pick up the van with a clean bill of health.

We jumped in the van and headed back to Larick campsite (we were last here in September).

We discovered one of the rear window boards was missing and contacted Dicksons but they said they didn’t have it.

We searched the van top to bottom and it’s not in there…so it’ll be back to Dicksons of Perth…not very impressive.

Update: They phoned on Monday to say it had accidentally been put into another van and was posted out to us and arrived on Tuesday…much better service.

We headed out and had coffee and cake in the Larick Cafe.

After that we headed to the Tayport bar and had a few pints and wine.

Back via Co-op and the Chinese takeaway which was not too bad, we split Beef chow mein and a Special fried rice between us.

We relaxed in the van and watched Spinal Ttap 2 - honestly it’s not great.

It was pretty wild and windy outside as we retired to bed.

Saturday 6th December 2025

Wild and windy and wet overnight…didn’t sleep that well.

We had lost our water overnight - the water drain-down switch was left open, so we had to brave the rain and wind to refill the tank.

We had a light breakfast of tea and toast with peanut butter and we headed out to get the bus into Dundee.

There’s a bus every 20 minutes from very close to the campsite.

We wandered the streets of Dundee…it was looking pretty festive with a market and shows and it was still dry, we wandered into a couple of places looking for something to eat for lunch.

Eventually we popped into Tony Macaronis and sat down with a Bakewell fizz - very nice.

I had the Tony Macaroni pizza while Gayle opted for the gluten-free pasta which was apparently very nice.

We wandered Dundee some more and headed back to the site via Tesco for some food.

Coffe and cake in the Larick cafe - very nice and GF Miliionaire’s shortbread which was lovely.

We read and relaxed for the rest of the afternoon and had a fairly light dinner and I popped over to the facilities block to wash up the dishes (they have an indoor sink so I didn’t have to brave the misty cold air).

A couple of old Castle episodes before bedtime.

Sunday

Cold, misty morning, we were up early and went for a walk along the riverside but it was too misty to see the sunrise.

We packed up and headed home via Kincardine through the gloom of mist and fog.