I just happened to check my blog this morning and realised that my last post was more than a week ago so huge apologies, time has just gotten away with me, wrapping up things for summer has overtaken the need for everything else and my life has become a whirl of photo shoots, editing and end of term commitments.
Looby has been really stressed about her transition from primary to secondary school, so much so that I decided to take her away on my latest travel assignment, a quick dog friendly break in Dunbar,
I've never been to Dunbar so didn't really know what to expect and imagine my surprise to discover that we were actually checked into the only dog friendly hotel/bar/restaurant in the whole town, living somewhere with dog friendly places in almost every area of Newcastle I still find it a little alien to visit places which aren't as accepting of Holly.
The train journey from Newcastle to Dunbar takes around an hour and for a cheap return ticket bought the day of travel with our friends and family railcard it was £29 which I don't think is bad at all. Holly loves the train and she's always welcomed and fussed and petted by the lovely staff on Virgin Eastcoast.
The Royal Mackintosh Hotel is conveniently situated just a couple of minutes away from the train station which is a Godsend when you have bags, children and a dog in tow and I was pleasantly surprised and delighted to find that our room was cavernous and contained not only a four poster bed but also a delightful settee with views out of the window down to the beach.
The weather was a little blustery, not so summery or sunny but we managed to have a wander around the town without getting too wet, we were sad to find that the hotel wasn't able to serve food due to a fault in the kitchen so we ended up getting fish and chips and bringing them back to our room, the hotel did try to find us somewhere dog friendly to eat but nowhere else in Dunbar is, shame on you Dunbar, you have such a beautiful seaside town perfect for long dog walks maybe you should consider that if you were slightly more accepting of our four legged friends you would attract more tourism into your beautiful town.
I have to say that I'd never expected Dunbar to be quite so beautiful as it was, I think it's somewhere I would love to wander around and what the town lacks in dog friendliness the Royal Mackintosh hotel makes up for, I spotted several dogs whilst we were staying, they're allowed throughout the hotel except for the restaurant, luckily the bar also serves the same menu and we had breakfast brought to our room on Friday morning, something that Looby loved, at 11 she still thinks that room service is a magical wonderful thing.
Holly slept on a little put me up bed at the bottom of our bed and she had a great nights sleep and the next morning we awoke to some temporary sunshine which we made the most of!
After a lovely 5 mile walk the skies became overcast and it wasn't long before there was a downpour, with 2 hours left until our train the only option we had was to return to the Royal Mackintosh Hotel for some lunch in the bar, if it had been sunny we could have sat outdoors at a couple of lovely looking coffee shops so it's a bit of a shame that we didn't get to experience anywhere else but our lunch at the Royal Mack was entirely delicious and I can't recommend their rooms or indeed their hospitality highly enough.
Will I return to Dunbar again soon? I'd love to but I'd also like the burgh of Dunbar to work on being more welcoming to our woofy companions! Interestingly I don't know what I would have done if Looby hadn't been with me as I wouldn't have been able to go in to the fish and chip shop so I literally wouldn't have been able to eat for 24 hours.
Next stop Edinburgh in just a few weeks and after signing up to the dugsinpubs website I'm delighted to find that there are 378 listings for dog friendly places in Edinburgh, that makes this beagle mum a very happy lady!
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