Back from Holiday

Well, I'm back from my holiday in Scot-the-land and had a really good time.  Went to several places, including:

• Deep Sea World, Scotland's National Aquarium which has a spectacular 112m (IIRC) underwater tunnel - the highlight of which was when my daughter realised a shark was swimming over her head!
• Edinburgh Castle, a very splendid castle with some fascinating regimental museums as well
• Falkland Palace & Garden

But the best place - for me anyway - was Scotland's Secret Bunker. A real surprise as the first I knew about it was signs to it on the side of the motorway. Intrigued I looked it up on the net and we went there. Apparently it was built in the early 50s and eventually it became the destination for the Scottish government in the event of a nuclear war. As it had become obsolete - 30m of soil being not enough to protect it from modern bunker-busters - it was sold of in the mid-90s and the new owners have made it a museum.

The surface guardhouse was built to resemble a Scottish farmhouse and gives no clue to the extensive bunker beneath it:

And it certainly is extensive! This (blurry :( ) pic shows a plan of the top floor of the bunker (The orange parts are still restricted and cannot be accessed by the public), and there are another 3 below it!  (Although the bottom 2 were sealed off before the bunker was sold)

For anyone interested in modern warfare or post-apocalyptic gaming, I would heartily recommend a visit to this place. Along with seeing it, you also get a wealth of information about the capabilities of a place like this - e.g. the air-conditioning system can change ALL of the air in the bunker 14 times every 15 minutes!!, the 3m concrete shell surrounding the bunker has tungsten rods every 30cm to protect the structure from a nuclear blast's EMP, etc ...

If you get the chance - go there and be sure to get the audio guide if you do!

edited: for Mathyoo's benefit, here's a pic of a shark that I took while in the underwater tunnel at Deep Sea World: