International Weekend @ Ratagan

For the second time I joined together with my colleagues from Friends International Dundee for an international student weekend away. This time students from Dundee and St Andrews and Paisley came together for a fabulous weekend in the highlands.

Our Paisley group consisted of (from left to right) Jason, Faeghe, Joe, Xiafei, Phoebe and Sophia.

We left Paisley at 10am for a leisurely drive up the west coast to Ratagan ... taking our time to admire the scenery along the way!

With a stop at one of my favourite places 'The Green Welly' in Tyndrum for a spot of refuelling - and I don't mean the petrol tank.

We also stopped at Fort William for lunch.

On arrival at the Ratagan Youth Hostel on the edge of Loch Duich we made preparation for others to arrive. This included making several vats of chilli.

Everyone arrived safely and although the weather on route up hadn't been so great we woke to a gloriously sunny day on the Saturday.

During the weekend our guest speaker, Dick Dowsett, gave several short talks entitled 'Seeing Jesus close-up'. These talks were entirely optional for the students, though a good number attended.

Saturday held several options for the students. A number of us chose to go to the Isle of Skye - who knows when we'll next be this far north again. One route we stopped at Eilean Donan Castle which, although it was closed for the winter, was good for a few kodak moments ...

On Skye we stopped at the Aros Centre for refreshments ... before exploring the picturesque town of Portree.

Other students chose the far more energetic option of a coastal walk. Some were not so well equipped with proper walking shoes, etc but everyone stayed safe.

This is our whole group braving the rain in preparation for the journey back home.

Our route home took a slight detour to Loch Ness.

And finally ... we make a very lucky escape after spotting the Loch Ness Monster!!