Coos!

    

Well today was exciting, we had booked a walking tour at a farm who have Highland Coos.  It was really well organised and the farmers very relaxed and easy to talk to and obviously very proud of their coos.  We started off walking through fields where Neale explained to us the ecology - what was managed, what was wild (pretty much nothing), how much subsidy he got for various things, and also some ancient landmarks showing an old roundhouse and another formation where people would heat rocks, and put them into the cold water, the thermal shock of hot rocks into cold water, would then make the rocks split and then they would throw the small rocks into a pile.  That pile still exists but no-one knows why the practice existed...

Eve

Anyway, we were learning lots of things, when the farmer's wife appeared and said that Eve the calf had come down for a scratch.  We then saw a beautiful blonde Highland calf by the gate.  That was the end of the ancient history lesson and ecology lectures we all went a bit silly for the coos.  The farm have 3 coos in a field who are ok around people - one of them being Eve (she was born on Christmas Eve) and who is a local celebrity having had a spread in Hello Magazine - she was beautiful and loved the attention.  Next door to her field was a field full of coos so we had a field day with photography.   Matt and Tom got to give Eve a scratch too (I was busy being shy!)

There were also lots of sheep: Beltex breed, not the most beautiful of sheep, but apparently very good commercially.  They make far more money from the sheep than the coos - although now they do this farm tour, that might change.

We got back to the farmhouse to find a selection of cakes each: marshmallow and rocky road, a chocolatey one, lemon drizzle and special highland moo shortbread.  All very lovely.  Was a lovely way to spend the morning.

We spent the afternoon touring round the Isle of Whithorn peninsula.  This is where the wicker man was filmed, one of our favourite films.  Although it was a little overcast, we got a great view of the Isle of Man, Cumbria and the Mull of Galloway.  

We stopped at Port William for a stroll on the beach, then Whithorn - nothing about it at all, so we turned around headed to the Cave of St Ninian, which was in the Wickerman. It was closed but the walk down to the beach was very pretty and the beach full of lovely smooth pebbles which are perfect for skimming on the very calm sea.  We went back to the car and carried on to Isle of Whithorn which was a pretty village with two open pubs and plenty of people milling around, we did a short walk to a lighthouse there. 

Next stop was Garlieston this is where they developed Mulberry Harbour, for D-Day.  They had photos of the various different types of structure they tried out before they settled on the final design.  All very interesting - must have been quite something being local and seeing all these constructions going on!

Next stop was Wigtown, where there was a distillery, Bladnoch Distillery, which we paid a visit to - Matt finally got his holiday bottle - and very unusual for him, he went for a blend.

We then got home and collapsed.  Was quite a busy day in the end.