See, hear, taste and touch the best our countryside has to offer

Published on Wednesday 24 June 2009 22:42

FROM fly fishing to wine tasting, BMX bikes to renewable energy, there's more to the Royal Highland Show (RHS) than just being Scotland's largest agricultural gathering.

Some 160,000 visitors are expected to flock to the 100-acre showground at Ingliston, in Edinburgh, over the next four days to see, hear, taste and touch the best that Scotland's countryside has to offer. This year's show will be bolstered by special events to mark Homecoming, the year-long festival inviting visitors to come and share in their Scottish heritage.

Homecoming events running as part of the show include whisky tasting, history lessons on tartan, the chance to trace your Highland ancestors and a special show on Sunday, featuring the Borders common ridings.

Other star attractions this year include Classical Brit Award winners the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, who will be performing tracks from their best-selling album, Spirit Of The Glen – Journey, tomorrow and on Sunday.

Further musical entertainment will come from crowd-pleasers the Alexander Brothers, along with jazz, fiddle music and gospel singing.

Inside the seven-acre "countryside area" – complete with landscaping and its very own one-acre loch – guests will have the chance to visit stands and watch demonstrations from ferrets to falconry, and from gun dogs to terrier racing.

Even though the event has grown to become one of the largest food and drink and outdoor activities festivals in Scotland, the RHS still remains true to its farming roots and will this year host its largest ever livestock display.

More than 5,000 cattle, sheep, goats, horses and poultry have been entered into the various breed classes of competition and the International Salers Federation has included the RHS as part of the programme at its convention, tripling the number of cows from the French breed entered in this year's contest.

To outsiders, the livestock show may seem like an event lifted from a bygone age, but, for breeders, the exhibitions are an excellent opportunity to show off their stock and, with nearly 1 million in prize money and trophies on offer, the displays are serious business.