OUR favourite place in Scotland is North Ronaldsay, which is one of the isles in Orkney, and we have lived here our whole lives. There are only five pupils in our school and about 56 people on the island. Our lighthouse is 43 metres high. It is the e
ighth-tallest lighthouse in the world.
Every year, we have a folk festival – which loads of people from around the world come to enjoy the music and dancing – and a pantomime. They are very entertaining.
The island has a bird observatory, which is also used as a guest house.
We like this island because it is quiet and there is hardly any traffic. It is very isolated. The peri-meter of the island is 13 miles, and it is three-and-a-half miles long. The dyke surrounding the island has been there for hundreds of years.
There is a standing stone on the island that is different from all the other ones in Europe because it has a hole in it, and only some of it shows above the ground.
And wherever you are on the island, you will never be more than a mile away from the beach.
In 2006, the old lighthouse came third in the final of the BBC programme Restoration Village. The Islander plane is very small and loud. It only has eight seats and it is the island's main source of travel. The plane usually comes three times a day, but sometimes four.
We have some very beautiful beaches on the island. The sheep live on the beach, and in the summer the residents let them in to the fields to lamb. The sheep eat seaweed instead of eating too much grass. North Ronaldsay mutton is sold in posh restaurants around Britain.
As well as swimming in the sea, we like to go fishing off the pier and go for walks along the beach.
Duncan (12) and Cameron Gray (10), and Gavin Woodbridge (10), North Ronaldsay Primary School, OrkneyThe full article contains 354 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
