Scotland 3 - the highland cows

[sashura]

Previous parts in LJ: Scotland 1, Scotland 2
I might or might not eventually copy them here, but for now links to LJ are better than nothing.

Highland Cow is the state animal of Scotland. Well, technically it's a unicorn, but cows should be if they chose a real living animal, not a mythical one. The toys, t-shirts, photos, magnets and everything else with their images is sold on every corner.


So, we had to see them, preferably not in the zoo. The closest to the city place that I could find was Swanston Farm.

The farm's website said that the nearest train station is the one in Edinburgh and recommended to take a bus instead. We chose uber, 25 min ride sounded better than figuring out how the busses work (later on we found out it was a very good decision as busses are unpredictable at best.)

The cows here are used only for conservation grazing - the farm is trying to restore native trees and in order to do that needs to keep other vegetation at bay.











They use their long horns to scratch their backs and sides!






There are golf courses all around the farm and an Alpine Coaster about an hour walking distance away. But taking a ride in an open cart didn't feel like a good idea in the rain, so we called an uber and headed home.

In case my pictures look too sunny, this is a more realistic view: