Horny Coos, Steel Horses & Misty Mountains

February 24^th, 2026

Leaving Edinburgh around noon, our first stop was on the southern outskirts of the city.  Swanston Farms boasts some holiday cottages, a livery (for horse riders), a café and golf course but we stopped there to check out their Highland cows, known in this country by their Gaelic name: “Coos”!

Gentle giants...they almost look unreal.

Not sure how they can see!

After a short visit to check out the hairy coos, about 45 minutes later we arrived at stop number two on our drive to Glencoe.  The Kelpies are a pair of monumental steel horseheads that were completed in 2013.  At 30 meters tall, these massive heads weigh in at 300 tonnes each!

Wow...look at the two people in black on the right to see the scale of these horses.

Easy boy.

A kelpie is a mythical shape-shifting spirit inhabiting lochs in Scottish folklore.

You can barely see me in the photo on the left.

Naomi liked the two swans enjoying the water at the base of one of the kelpies.

These 3 meter high miniature versions near the gift shop were created by the artist Andy Scott. These were then scanned by lasers to help the steel fabricators create accurate full-scale components.

We continued our drive west towards Glencoe, our destination for the night.  Although there were low hanging clouds and a bit of rain at times, it was still a lovely drive.

Some ducks on Loch Lubnaig.

A railroad bridge in the distance.

I'm liking the drive!

Driving a nice windy road.

Hard to see in this photo, but there's a ski chairlift going up the hill, beside a waterfall, to access the skiing area of Glencoe Mountain Resort.  Judging by the size of the parking lot, it's not an overly big or busy ski hill.

Some "budget" accommodations in the parking lot of the ski resort.

Some kind of metal ski giant in the parking lot.

The landscape was gorgeous, even if we couldn't see all of it due to low clouds at times.

One of numerous lovely "bens" (mountain in Gaelic).

For some reason, that white house in the distance is a popular tourist stop...

...for a photo.  It is lovely, I'll give it that.

Passing by the "Three Sisters", a popular viewpoint of three distinctive ridges on the Bidean Nam Bian Mountain.  It is also a good hiking spot.

Our hotel in the tiny town of Glencoe, population 374.  Our room is on the ground floor, the two windows on the right, the part that looks like a sloping roof.

The loch outside of the hotel.

The boat in the background really added to the ambience.

Our strange hotel room.  The wall with the windows were slanted but there was enough room to hole a yoga class!

The dining room and lounge with a wood fire stove on the left.

A dinner of an interesting coucsous salad and rissotto.

Starting with touring Edinburgh Castle and finishing in Glencoe, it was a long, but great day.  Tomorrow we’ll head to the Isle of Skye.