Thurso – the Toddler Pool, Soup and a Free Museum
A few hours.
The route
Thurso has a morning for little ones that stays dry from start to finish.
The leisure centre has a toddler pool and a family session for children up to seven, and the North Coast Visitor Centre on the High Street is free, with a lift to every floor and soup in its café. It suits families with babies and young children.
Before you go
Book accommodation nearby
If you are staying over: here are ours nearest where the day starts and ends.
The nearest of ours is House of the Northern Gate, 6 miles away. Sleeps 18.
Book the family session at Thurso Leisure Centre online before you go (Saturdays and Sundays 10am to 11am, one adult to two children up to seven, on the timetable to 11 October); members can book up to a week ahead.
The day
Thurso
A splash in the pool first, then soup and cake in the old town hall, and Pictish stones and fossils on the floors above.
About four hours
Thurso Leisure Centre
Thurso Leisure Centre is on Millbank Road, with its own car park and two accessible bays. Besides the 25-metre pool there's a toddler pool for little ones to splash in. The family session, with one adult to two children up to seven, is on Saturdays and Sundays from 10am to 11am on the timetable that runs to 11 October. It can be booked online, and the next timetable goes up on High Life Highland's page. A swim is £9.10 for an adult and £5.50 for a child at the time of writing, and under-3s swim free with a paying adult. The centre is level throughout, with four family changing areas with doors and an accessible changing room that opens straight onto the poolside. Ring 01847 893260 to ask about baby changing.
3 min by car
North Coast Visitor Centre
The North Coast Visitor Centre is 3 minutes' drive away on the High Street, in the old town hall and Carnegie Library, with first-come public parking at the entrance, including disabled spaces. It's free to go in, and open Tuesday to Saturday from 10am to 5pm, so on a Sunday, swim and leave the museum for another day. Start with lunch in Café North, with daily homemade soup, light lunches and home baking until 4pm, then take the lift up through three floors of Caithness's story, from fossils and Pictish carved stones to the control room of Dounreay. A passenger lift reaches every exhibition space and the café, and the whole centre is wheelchair accessible. Only assistance dogs are allowed in.
If it rains
All of it is under a roof.
Olive, a café in Thurso.
Photographs by Louk Ballantine, GNAL and Allan MacIver via Google