This cache is one of the “Cruise the Alternative Highway” series. This series follows the A92 Angus Coastal Tourist route between Dundee and Stonehaven then onwards to Aberdeen. Cache locations are all at interesting locations either just off the A92 or with a short detour.
Dundee - City of Discovery
RRS Discovery was the last wooden ship built in Britain. Many years in the planning, she was "172 feet long, 33 feet extreme beam and will be 1570 tons displacement. She will be built of oak and elm, with an ice casing of green heart. Her bows will be sharp and strengthened for forcing her way through ice. The plans are those of a vessel which will be, by far, the best adapted for severe weather and ice navigation, as well as for scientific investigations, that has ever entered the polar regions ..."
The National Antarctic Expedition of 1901-04 was the ship's first project, when she was captained by Robert Falcon Scott. She spent two winters in the southern ice, and plans had been made to abandon her, but she was finally freed on 14th February 1904 by the Dundee whaler, Terra Nova, which blasted through the ice pack.
Restored under the auspices of the Maritime Trust - from whom the ship was bought by Dundee Heritage Trust in 1995 for one pound. Discovery returned to Dundee in 1986 and is the focal point of one of the city's main tourist attractions, Discovery Point.
As well as the RRS Discovery herself, housed in a custom dock, Discovery point has exhibitions about the building of the ship, the provisioning for its journey to the Antarctic, and how the National Antarctic Expedition withstood the extreme conditions.