A story of how a family from Glasgow discovered Dunbar
We live in Glasgow and as a family of four with two small kids, we are always looking for things to do at the weekend. With lockdown restrictions having been relaxed more and more this year to the point where they are now a distant memory (thank god), we are able to explore further afield after a year of what seems like the same local park every single weekend.
So this is a story of how my wife and I decided to go to Culzean Castle with the kids for the weekend. There were some good walks, a play park, some history, cafes, a beach…..the list goes on.
And generally we had a good weekend. The beach was so so but the walk was nice and when I returned to work on Monday morning and was asked the common Monday question ‘what did you get up to at the weekend’ my response was ‘We went to Culzean Castle. It was pretty good and there was stuff to do with the kids’.
What I wasn’t expecting was the response ‘you should have gone to Dunbar’.
Dunbar! That is miles away. In fact it is right on the East Coast. That is far too far away to travel for a day out with the kids. But when I looked into it in more detail, Culzean Castle was an hour and twenty minutes from our front door (and the single lane country roads at the end were slow with traffic and made the kids a wee bit car sick). Dunbar, granted is further but only by an extra ten minutes and is along the M8 and then the A1. Simple. So that evening we decided to commit to a day out in Dunbar. And boy am I glad we made that decision.
There was so much to do. We arrived in the town and had a walk through some of the Town Centre to get a feel for the place, discovered the Harbour, got an ice cream and then hit what has to be one of the best beaches in Scotland. Then while the kids still had energy we went for a coastal walk and found that Belhaven Brewery was nearby and despite my pleading, we agreed that there was not enough time left in the day.
Before we left, we got to do some Rock Pooling and even spotted a Seal as we were heading back to the car. We had a great day and considering we only scratched the surface of what there is to do in the area, we have already committed to come back in the next couple of weeks to try and tick off even more things to do in the area.
Dunbar really has been a great discovery for us and if you are looking for recommendations for a day trip from Glasgow with the kids then you should definitely check out Dunbar.