Perth Highland Games, Scone Palace, Perth and Kinross

Something of a change for Jasper and Tommy last Sunday as we visited the Perth Highland Games held at Scone Palace (pronounced "skoon", if you didn't already know) near the city of Perth. As an aside, we had been to Scone Palace with the dogs before, since we attended last year's "Paws at the Palace" event. That's a fun day filled with dog events and lots of dog related stalls etc. It takes place in the grounds surrounding the palace itself and is taking place this year on Sunday 4th September. If that interests you, there are more details on their website here.

Getting back to the games... the organisers have not been able to run them since 2018, due to bad weather in 2019 and of course the pandemic in 2020 and 2021. It's dog friendly, though understandably, dogs are required to be kept on a lead. The games are held in a very large field in the wider palace grounds with plenty of space to wander about. There are trees dotted around; handy for the dogs to cool off under, given our recent weather. Lots of entertaining events on offer, stalls to peruse and numerous food options. Quite a lot of people had brought their dogs with them and ours loved it!

Here are a few pics and a couple of videos that we captured. All images can be clicked/tapped to enlarge.

The hammer throw involves throwing a rather different type of hammer from that used in the Olympic event and quite a different technique too!

Hammer throw (click/tap to enlarge)

Hammer throw

You could try your hand at axe throwing.

The professionals make it look deceptively easy!

Mixed results for those having a go however!

Very entertaining to watch the highland dancing with the bagpipe accompaniment.

Sword Dance

Here's a short video of the sword dance.

A few photos of the tossing the caber event. The aim being to toss the caber through a vertical rotation and get it to land as close to the 12 o'clock position as possible.

Tossing the caber

Tossing the caber

Tossing the caber

Time to find some shade for a rest and drinks.

The Scottish Knight League were in attendance to demonstrate their full contact medieval combat. Seemingly it's a competitive sport with a world championships and it's pretty violent!

The commentator was at pains to point out to the audience that whilst these were demonstrations as opposed to championship matches, the competitors were still not going to hold back, as the below video shows!

There wasn't a pipe band competition this year as the games clashed with the World Pipe Band Championships in Glasgow. The Perth and District Pipe Band were in attendance however.

All in all a thoroughly enjoyable day out. Jasper and Tommy were in their element being made a fuss of by some of the other visitors and they got to interact with plenty of other dogs.