Competition winners and their stories of lighter travel

We had some great entries into our Tayport Going Green 4 Holidays competition, promoting ways of travelling which are both fun and tread a bit lighter on our planet. It was a very hard choice but our three local judges with experience in fine arts and creative writing, Pinkie MacLure, Jo Bowles, and Kathleen Gray managed to select winners in each of the 3 age categories in late October. Angela and Daisy picked up their prizes of Tayport Apple Juice at the Garden last Sunday, and Samanta popped by with her mum on Monday to collect her plant book and bug stamps (she was too shy to show her happy face for the photo!). We include the three winning entries below. We are also working on publishing the full collection of stories as a photo-book later this year.

Winner in 5 and under category – Samanta

I like coming to the [Community] Garden. I enjoyed watering plants today. I was watering lettuce plants. My mum likes lettuce in her sandwiches. I like walking. I usually skip. We spot ladybirds, snails and spiders. We saw a big spider yesterday in the park.

Winner in 6 to 16 category: Daisy

I went to the West Coast with my family, and we camped in a little village called Tayvallich. We visited lots of historical sites, including some Neolithic cairns in Kilmartin Glen (one of which is pictured). We brought Peedie Kally (pictured), who was knitted by me in Orkney last year. She is a Neolithic person. We drove there, as it wasn’t too far away. We saw a cow that had escaped from its field on one of the wee roads! We have also chosen as a family not to fly. We prefer to go to places in Scotland as there’s loads of things to do here.

I thought the historical places were very interesting, and we also went to a peat bog where there was lots of wildlife. We saw lots of dragonflies there. We also went to a loch where beavers have been reintroduced, and we saw trees they had chewed. We went for a lot of walks in the nature reserves nearby, including some of Scotland’s ancient Atlantic oak woodland. The weather was mostly great. It rained a wee bit, but we didn’t let that stop us!

Winner in over 16 category: Angela

In July I was one of a group of excited students travelling to Stromness on Orkney to study Permaculture Design. I wanted this journey to be meaningful and as green as possible. To do this I planned my travel by bike on rail and ferry. I organised this over a few months in order to book a place on a return train from Dundee to Thurso, not as easy as you would imagine with limited places for bicycles on trains on a very busy route (Perth to Inverness) at peak summer travel but patience paid off eventually. Full of anticipation for the journey ahead I packed all I needed for over two weeks, taking into consideration Scottish weather and room for some extra goodies onto to my bike and felt really excited about the journey. I spent 3 days cycling around the mainland on Orkney taking in many of the UNESCO sights before settling into Stromness for 2 full weeks of study.

Cycling on Orkney is wonderful even in the wind! Feeling so free and happy peddling my way round the ancient lands. Nothing beats the feeling of being so close to nature, butterflies stopping to rest on you, hearing bird song and seeing the beautiful diversity of wild flowers as you cycle by its a an adventure to engage all your senses and connect you through the heart to nature and landscape. One morning I got up really early and made my way round the coast. I stopped a while to watch a seal bask, a skua being chased by gulls and was amazed to see not far off in the distance a minke whale making its solo journey North. Travelling on the ferry over from Scrabster was fantastic too the views to Hoy some of the best I have experienced. Travelling green takes some planning but the feeling you get from travelling slower helps set a pace you can relax into and enjoy this beautiful world we live in. With a heart content I will be planning more adventures with my bike.