Today was SHOW-TASTIC! Once again due to our ‘amazing organisational skills’ we found ourselves in a town the very weekend a big event was on...this time we struck the Royal Highland show! “Seek out adventure, create magical memories and discover the fun at the...Greatest show on earth”. Wow-wee were we excited, this was like Gore A&P but in mammoth proportions, it was like Christmas come early, it was like a breath of fresh air for some country girls and the ever obliging Abby.
After being good little Kiwi’s and watching the All Blacks vs Wales game over breakfast we were off for a sunny day, strolling around the show and taking in all the sights it had to offer. The classes of sheep included every breed you could imagine and some of them definitely got the wrong end of the stick when it came to ‘pretty’ genetics.
The cattle were all housed in this gigantic building and encompassed breeds from exotic to commercial, dairy to beef. The British Blue breed gave us a good laugh with their unusual muscling in the rump and the size of the Shorthorn and Hereford Bulls was very impressive.
The Highland cattle were definitely a crowd favourite - who could resist their cuteness as well as the much revered Belted Galloway.
Our non-agricultural correspondent was quite surprised at just how big the bulls were. “They were like the size of a hippopotamus or rhinoceros. ..if only Hippo's were more useful we could be farming them”...was some of her wise commentary on the subject.
Then it was onto the food hall with everything from cheese to oil and of course plenty of sweet treats in between to sample. We saw a couple of demonstrations the first being The Forge where teams of 2 were racing against each other and the clock to make horseshoes for Clydesdales from scratch. There was also a Galloway Falconry and birds of prey display, which we caught the end of and Kath even got to have Aidan the Harrier Hawk, making his debut performance, land on and take off from her hand.
The grand parade was very over-whelming for our non-agricultural correspondent who spent the majority of it ‘just resting her eyes’ as she was lulled to sleep by the hypnotic movement of cattle around the ring and the smooth British accent of the commentator. The rest of us received a visual feast of champions from Horses, ponies and donkeys to Cattle. There was even entries in the Horse and Cattle sections from Her Majesty the Queen. Oh la la! It was very impressive the number of cattle they could parade around a ring in one go.
This Hereford Bull below was named the overall Champion.
The Harperring and Silversnipe Labrador Gun Dog display had Whitey and Jess walking away with their tails between their legs after realising how lacking their respective faithful hounds are. This couple had a pack of 3 dogs each that were the most obedient dogs ever seen. They sat on command and stayed there no matter what their owner was doing or what was happening around them. They fetched the dummy that their owner wanted them too, when there was a choice between 3 AND they even fetched a dummy that had gone over their heads. Apparently the key to a good gun dog begins back at the puppy stage...so it’s back to preschool for Josie and George!
A final display that caught our attention was pole climbing. This involved two guys racing each other to the top of a 30m pole where the first person to hit the buzzer wins. The world record is held by an Aussie with 9.2 seconds and the guys we saw were managing to get close to this but not beat it. At the end of each climb the commentator gave some background on the competitors, including relationship status which was well received!
We headed back towards the shuttle buses, strolling via the machinery section at a speed probably incomprehensible to man in such a situation but with the appropriate ooh’s and aah’s when passing large gleaming tractors.
A final stop at the fudge stall had us leaving with the promised magical memories but also sweet sugar headaches as we boarded the bus back to Edinburgh.
No comments:
Post a Comment