health tourism

I had a hospital appointment in Stranraer this afternoon so thought I would get an early bus and look around the town a bit. It's 80 miles from Dumfries and the bus fare worked our at only 5p a mile. The man in front of me asked for a single and the bus driver said 'Are you sure? Noone ever asks for a single, they all want to leave Stranraer as quickly as possible.' Which exemplifies a kind of Dumfries prejudice against the 'Wild West'.

During my explorations, I visited the excellent Museum, in the old Town Hall.
The photo above shows a souvenir from another traveller, John Ross. He took this can of beef when he set out in 1818 to look for the North West Passage, and back to the Arctic again in 1829, but it returned unopened.

The can was presented by Ross to the Stair family of Lochinch Castle. It was finally opened in 1869 for the Earl of Stairs 21st birthday party. The meat was pronounced 'quite good' and all the party guests survived the meal.