What do you get when you put 16 people and one tour guide into a small van? If you’re lucky something like what we had these last three days with Stewart. 

This guy took a random assemblage of humans (albeit some of them related) from three continents and made us into a community with routines, in-jokes and a quest: We had to find a “hairy coo” — a Highland cow — not only for the six-year-old among us but for all the other lovers of these gentle, shaggy beasts. 

Stewart backed up the van and practically drove us into the field where a few of the cattle were grazing. Photos were snapped … and snapped …. and snapped. It’s a testament to these creatures’ docile natures that they put up with it all.

As for our tour group, we have scattered to the four winds, to a lot more places than this famous sign at John O’Groats, the northern-most point in mainland Britain.