To keep things simple this morning we opted for breakfast at the hotel. To help show once again that Edinburgh is not a bright and early up and at ‘em kind of town, breakfast service started at 9:30am. On the plus side it also meant checkout wasn’t ‘til 11 so no need to rush.

It was a bit of an Olympic sport repacking the bags, despite buying nothing – but now we’re very much in need of a laundrette in the next day or so, my suitcase is full of all my dirty clothes and half of Perry’s as well.

Getting the suitcases down all the stairs in the hotel was of course much easier than dragging them up there 5 days ago, but carrying them to the train station was by no means a fast process. I know I was unfit to begin with but I swear covid from the other week is still making it presence known a little bit. Slow and steady wins the race.

We had a plan. Check out of the hotel, then use the luggage storage facilities at the station to look after our bags all day. That’s because although we are leaving Edinburgh today, we’re not leaving until after 11pm, on a sleeper train that will slowly but surely trundle us down to London by 8am the following the morning.

The luggage storage place very nearly scuppered those plans twice over – first, they said they didn’t enough room for our ginormous luggage. Secondly, after they agreed to do a bit of Tetris work to make things fit, our bags wouldn’t fit under the security scanner, but with enough poking and prodding and flattening and general encouragement, they were x-rayed and stored away for us to pick up much later in the day.

With that out of the way, to start the day proper we caught the train to North Queensferry, just as an excuse to go over the Forth Rail Bridge, because why not. This time we remembered we could use our “two together” railcard so the fare was significantly cheaper than yesterday. Winning! The trip was, well, just a train trip over a bridge, kinda wobbly though!

North Queensferry station is quite pretty, the tunnel just past the station looks just like the kind of thing you could’ve bought for your Hornby train set years and years ago. We had about a 15 minute wait before a train whisked us back to Edinburgh Waverley. One thing about that bridge, at some points there’s only a small gap between the train and the edge – you can’t fall out, but there’s still very little between you and plummeting to the icy depths below.

One thing I’ve noticed about Edinburgh – but I’m sure not unique to it by any means – is an attitude to driving mostly summed up by “yeah sure I’ll chance it!” Red light? I’ll chance it. A bus about to turn into the side street I also want to be on? Sure, chance it! Same goes for pedestrians too. The walk signal just went red and there’s a bus coming down the road? Yep, let’s chance it. I’m pretty sure in Sydney this would result in countless fender benders, squished pedestrians, and generally a whole bunch of angry people. But here in Edinburgh it somehow seems to work, there’s a lot of leeway given to people doing things that maybe they shouldn’t.

Back at Edinburgh Waverley, it was as hectic as usual, and since we had a whole day to spend and no hotel to fall back on, the Zoo seemed like a sensible choice. Easy to get to, just hop on the bus, tap the credit card, and watch the Maps app so you know when to exit. DIdn’t even need to watch app, my watch went ding and told when it was time to leave the bus. Nice. Also, no need to tap off, seems to be a flat £2 fare. Easy!

It was nice to get a little bit out of central Edinburgh – the streetscape didn’t change all that much, it just became a little more opened out, a few more trees around the place, etc. After a pleasant 20 minute ride or so we were at the zoo.

Like most if not all zoos they’ve pivoted their message to one of conservation and restoration over “come look at our imprisoned animals”, but of course everyone comes to a zoo to see the animals. First ones we saw were the meerkats so our visit was off to a cracking start.

Like pretty much all zoos everywhere, Edinburgh zoo was a hot mess when it came to food offerings. One restaurant with a sign saying it was closed, was open, the “please wait to be seated” sign was up, but there was nobody to seat you, and the restaurant itself seemed to only have one thing on the menu – hit chips. So we found another cafe inside, grabbed its last two pre-made sandwiches, and then continued on our way around the zoo.

If this zoo had a downside it would be its hills. Like Edinburgh they are plentiful and occasionally punishing. Getting to the top was really starting to be a struggle but at least it’s all downhill from there, which I sure welcomed.

We saw lots of animals, and the giraffe seemed very friendly with each other and some of them even seemed to be playing piggy backs, so, like all the parents with young children, we also need a hasty retreat and left them to their, uh, games.

There was some angry zebras, which I’m sure wasn’t as funny for them as it was for us. one would just bite and latch on to the mane of the other, and not let go, following around for ages.

The penguins had to be a highlight though, all squabbling over nests, and the ones with little hatchlings fiercely protecting them all penguins passing by, it was kinda a microcosm of society, only funnier, and probably also smellier.

We were also in the right place at the right time for a brief but interesting chat about their resident rhino. Apparently the rhino decides what form its horn will take, whether it’s long and pointy, or more stumpy. They said for zoo rhinos it’s more common to have a stumpy horn, as they don’t need to go attacking anyone and it doesn’t get caught in fences and the like.

We had plans to meet up with our near-Birmingham friends for dinner, but they sent a message through at exactly the right time saying hey if you’ve got time let’s meet up for drinks first – just as we were walking toward to zoo exit. Perfect! So our immediate plans were clear, off to Haymarket to a fun little gin palace for a delicious cocktail and good company. This was quickly followed by an amazing Japanese dinner two doors down, a place our friends knew well and wow they made a good choice! It’s only a small place, but the sashimi was super fresh, the sushi delicious, the tempura deliciously crisp, everything was done extremely well and we all had a fantastic meal. It was a bonus our friends happened to be in Edinburgh today as we thought after we stayed with them, that it would be a very long time before we saw them again.

By this time we still had about four hours to pass before our train to London would arrive, so we did some very sensible things, like get a (small!) tub of ice cream each for dessert. Interestingly, all the lovely parks are locked up for the evening but we found a concrete garden bed wall to sit in, it did the trick! (Also, a shoutout to Sainsbury’s for providing free wooden cutlery!) It was also an opportunity to get some final photos of the amazing Sir Walter Scott monument.

Then came the long wait. Ordinarily, there’s be a nice lounge available at the station but that’s undergoing refurbishment and the alternative lounge was a few streets away, so we just hung around at the station. At least it gives me plenty of time to write up most of the blog entry – but now it’s hit 10pm, the temperature has dropped to 11 degrees so we’re starting to feel the chill. Fortunately we checked with the staff and the train was available and ready to board. The station layout is so weird, like, Platform 11 is also Platform 7 if you walk up far enough. It makes that whole Platform 9 3/4 situation sound quite feasible.

So here we are – The Caledonian Sleeper. Will we be Australian sleepers? Or Australians who suddenly feel the need to question their choice of transport and accomodation? Find out in the next episode!