Inverness

The Bught – Waves, Glasshouses and a Play Park

A day.

The route

The Bught, on the west bank of the River Ness, is where Inverness takes its children, and it fills a whole day without moving the car.

There's a wave pool and a lazy river, warm glasshouses full of palms and cacti, a café that does kids' lunch boxes, and a big new play park with a little railway beside it. It's an easy day with a baby in a buggy, and a happy one for children up to about ten.

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 Newhall Mains in Balblair, 14 miles away.

The day

The Bught

A morning in the water, a slow hour among the palms, lunch, and the swings to finish. Everything is a few minutes' walk apart, on level ground most of the way.

About six hours

Inverness Leisure
Park in Inverness Leisure's own car park on Bught Lane, with 130 spaces, eight accessible bays and a drop-off point by the door, and leave the car there all day. At weekends, all year, the leisure pool opens at 9am, and the first session, until 10.55am, is a splash session in the wave pool and the warm toddler pool, when one adult may bring two under-fives. From 11am the lazy river with its jets and geysers joins in; the flumes are shut while repair works are carried out. On weekdays in term time it opens in the daytime only on Tuesdays from 10am to 1pm, Thursdays from 10am to 2pm and Fridays from 1pm, and in the school holidays from 10am every day. A swim is £7.30 for a parent with an under-three and £25 for a family, at the time of writing. There are ramps to every level, a changing village with private cubicles and a Changing Places toilet. Which features run depends on staff on the day: ring the recorded line on 01463 667500, from 7am, to find out.
About 2 min on foot
Inverness Botanic Gardens
An attraction
Inverness Botanic Gardens are next door on Bught Lane, a couple of minutes' walk from the pool, and they're free and open every day from 9.30am to 4pm. After a swim the Tropical House is lovely and warm, with banana, coffee and ginger plants and a waterfall tumbling into a pond of carp and goldfish to peer into, and the Cactus House runs straight on from it. The way in has a ramp and automatic doors, but both glasshouses have split levels reached by steps, so a pushchair keeps to the lower paths, and the paths outside are bark, grass and gravel, some of them uneven. Only assistance dogs are allowed.
More about Inverness Botanic Gardens
Café Botanics
Lunch
Lunch is at Café Botanics, by the gardens' entrance. It serves breakfast rolls, soup, sandwiches and toasties, cakes and traybakes, with kids' lunch boxes, and you sit in a glasshouse or in a snug with a fire. It's open every day with the gardens, 9.30am to 4pm, with last orders at 3.45pm, and there's no need to book. It has automatic doors and an accessible toilet with baby changing, and only assistance dogs come in. If it's full, Inverness Leisure has a café of its own on the lower level by the pool, reached by a ramp from reception.
About 5 min on foot
Whin Park
An attraction
Whin Park is about five minutes' walk south, on Bught Road. Its play park was rebuilt in 2025, with a Legend Seeker play ship, a climbing birds' nest, swings, an interactive Nessie and an adventure mound with a tube slide and a scramble net. It's made for children of about 3 to 10. The paths through the park are surfaced. Beside it, the Ness Islands Railway runs from Easter to late October, 11am to 4pm at weekends and every day in the local school holidays, weather permitting: a ride is £3 and under-4s go free. There are ducks on the pond and public toilets in the park, and the car is a few minutes' walk back at Inverness Leisure.
More about Whin Park

If it rains

The pool, the glasshouses and the café are all under a roof. On a wet afternoon, let lunch run long and go back to the Tropical House instead of the play park.

Inverness Botanic Gardens