Highland Show 2016

Last Friday we had a great day out to the Royal Highland Show.

We spent 7 hours walking around the show ground, with only about 20 minutes sitting down for our lunch, so were thoroughly exhausted by the end of the day.

But it was a happy, satisfying kind of exhausting.

There is so much to see at the Highland Show, and if you are interested in rural life in any way at all then it's a great day out. Even if you aren't so much interested in animals and machinery, there are also marquees for all the major supermarkets where they share their food ethics and such. Some give cookery demonstrations and they all give away loads of free samples!

And let's not forget the food hall, packed full of stalls offering even more free samples and the chance to buy lots of lovely Scottish foods.

It's a very family orientated day out, with kids under 16 getting in for free with an adult ticket, no matter how many of them there are.

We try and visit the show every year if we can and the boys have always loved going along.

We watched some very cool biking. This guy has just jumped off that tall tree stump...

David (10) got to climb high up in a tree (more photos of that in the slideshow below).

We saw lots, and lots, of animals. Fraser (2) really wanted to see the 'och-ochs' and the 'moos', although he held his nose most of the way round the huge 'moo' barn!

There are rows and rows of farm machinery, ranging in size from quad bikes to massive combines. This is Fraser's quad/motorbike driving face!

And, much to David's delight, there was even a chance to show off your football skills.

He was so chuffed to get his name on the leader board for the speed at which he could dribble the ball around the cones.

Well worthy of a sample of some Mackies ice cream - while James (16) and I sampled their chocolate bars!

Rather than post the rest of the photos in a long blog post, I thought I would share this slide show of them instead, so if you are interested in seeing the rest of our day at the show then just click below. (You might need to click on full screen to see it properly)

One final piece of advice if you are planning on attending the show in future years - take the bus!
We first took the bus out a couple of years ago, and although it cost us more than it would have done to park the car at the show ground - car parking is around £8 for the day; bus tickets are £6 return for adults and £3 for children, so when there are a few of you it is more than double the cost - it is worth every penny when you reach the end of Corstorphine and see the long, long queues of cars waiting to enter the show. The bus just drives right on past the traffic and takes you right up to the gates of the show. We felt very smug looking out at the cars stuck in traffic. Apparently it was taking around 2 hours for traffic to get in to the show at peak times!
There are special chartered Lothian Buses every few minutes from the centre of town. We got on at Haymarket and it took 25 minutes from the station to the show gates.
Like I said, worth every extra penny, especially with kids in tow!