Old growth

 

After lunch, we went into the park and the Queen Elizabeth Forest, miles and miles of mountain, loch and forest.

There's been an effort for many years to reverse the deforestation of Scotland, but lumber is still a big industry, and so many of the new trees that are planted are imports, because the native species take three or four times as long to mature, and no one wants to wait that long. You can tell the new plantings immediately -- hundreds of trees of the same species, the same height, climbing the slopes like good little soldiers.

As opposed to the beautiful messiness of the old growth above.