In complete contrast the next location was Gordonstoun School. We were lucky enough to be given a tour of the grounds by Sabine Richards the marketing director on her half term weekend off. We had lots to see in Lossiemouth, with both the RAF Base and the fishing harbour not to forget the planned housing. The Golf Courses seem to be taking over and even Andy Scott has made it up here with his wonderful sculpture of Hamish the Stag.

Our last visit of the day was to Elgin Museum. More archaeology for Alison to tell us about but my favourite had to be local prehistoric reptile Elginia Mirabilis – worth seeing in itself. Back at the hotel an evening Quiz was held due to the efforts of Dave Tucker and Jane Cameron. Many thanks!

Sunday morning dawned dry and sunny and we learnt from Callum Murray of the Forestry Commission that this was not an unusual occurrence. The Culbin Sands, a mobile sand dune system is one of the biggest in Europe. Well worth a visit on foot or with bikes.

The visit included a very enjoyable walk to a viewing tower at Hill 99. A huge area of various tree types Culbin Sands is a very popular tourist attraction with over 60,000 visits per annum; known for its wildlife we probably made too much noise to see any.

From Culbin we drove to Huntly admiring the scenery and landscape on the way. Morayshire, historic Banffshire and Aberdeenshire were all explained to us by Janet Bulloch, Rhona Bean and Linda MacKay – we are very grateful to them for their shared expertise so interestingly presented.

The sun continued to shine as we pulled up at Deans of Huntly to conclude our programme with well-earned soup & sandwiches. A really useful educational enlightening visit and most of all it was fun and after all we must not forget – “Guiding is Fun”. Thanks again to all those who put the weekend together and ably assisted Janet in her presentation.