A GROUP of Gordonstoun students are the first people in 50 years to camp on an abandoned Scottish island.
The ten sixth formers and two school staff spent eight days on the island of Swona, north of John O’Groats.
The group reached the island following a 10-hour journey by bus, ferry and boat, carrying food, sleeping bags and building supplies.
The students worked with the owners of the island – descendants of the last people that lived there – to rebuild the old pier, paths, stone dykes and make one of the old cottages habitable.
Renovations were a success during the eight days, as the team built the island’s first toilet in half a century.
The students and staff caught their own fish off the North Head of the island, baked their own bread on an open fire and had to pump fresh water from a 1000-year-old well. They stayed in a house that been abandoned for a century.
Student Hope Flemington said: “The trip to Swona was absolutely life-changing, it was a great opportunity to learn new life skills on a remote island while making new friends.
"There was a great camaraderie and a real sense of achievement by being of service to the local community. I wouldn’t have changed it for the world.”
Swona was inhabited from about 2000 BC. It has been the site for Viking farms, Neolithic tombs and a Medieval chapel. The island is a breeding colony for puffins, arctic terns and razorbills, and is visited by orcas, dolphins, pilot whales and minke whales.
In the 1880s, 47 residents lived on the island, which had its own school until 1920. The last two residents moved away in 1974.
