Our People

Having a sundowner with friends and family whilst in Laikipia, Kenya. As the sun set near a watering hole, over 100 elephants came out of the trees to drink and play in the water. The best natural high you could ever experience. Amazing.

One of my fondest memories is of sitting in Piazza della Signoria, Florence whilst on holiday with my wife and kids, having lunch in a small open-air café.

Everything was perfect – the food, the wine, the language, the wine, the weather and the wine.

For our honeymoon, my wife & I went on safari in the Masai Mara. On the first night we were shown to our tent where we noticed a big lump under the covers of the bed. Starting to sweat about what type of creature had found its way into our tent, I grabbed a rock from outside before pulling back the bed covers to reveal… a hot water bottle!

Out for a romantic dinner with my wife in Italy, and she decides to order our meal as she speaks a little Italian. It sounded really good to me, but the waiter responded (in English): “Sorry, we don’t have cannabis toppings on our pizzas”.

I was sitting in a café bar in Banos, (below the Tungurahua volcano), Ecuador and asked the Jamaican gentleman playing the guitar to the customers if I could have a go. I took the guitar from him, cranked up the amplifier and hit my first power chord – simultaneously the whole town’s electricity supply went down and we were plunged in to complete darkness!

Coming from the city of Glasgow where the underground goes round in a circle – the subway system in Tokyo coupled with my terrible sense of direction was very challenging…and for some reason basic Japanese spoken in a lovely Weegie accent results in much laughter from anyone you try to ask for help!

As a university student I spent a long summer break in India, in a remote village called McLeod Ganj, where the Tibetan government-in exile was based.

Walking down the mountainside to a yoga class I spotted a donkey with a cut on his face.

I quickly decided the injured beast needed specialist attention and caught him using one of my shoelaces which I wrapped around his neck.

As I stumbled down the rocky road towards the next village dragging the unwilling animal, a fleet of black cars beetled past me and the last in line stopped.

Out stepped the Dalai Lama who praised me for my kindness and gave me a red string bracelet for my selfless act.

Seconds later the donkey decided he’d had enough of being ‘rescued’ and headed back to his grassy hangout – leaving me with a broken shoelace, a crimson bracelet and a rather red face.

One of my favourite travel memories is visiting Spreepark – an abandoned theme park in Berlin.  It was quite an eerie experience, especially when the Ferris wheel started spinning slowly and creaking in the breeze.

Having moved to Dubai in 2016, I quickly became amazed with how multi-cultural the city is; making friends with people from all over the world and learning about so many different cultures.  I no longer have an amazing view of Edinburgh Castle, but the year-round sun makes up for this tragic loss in my life.

December 31st 2010 I was in Sydney, Australia. We woke up early and travelled to Bondi Beach where I met a friend who took us to a remote spot at the wilderness reserve there and we spent the day surfing the most incredible waves. In the evening we returned to the city to watch the fireworks over the harbour and the famous Sydney opera house. That was a good day!

While we were in a hotel in the mountains of Italy, my fiancé and I went down to the car to get my phone charger at 2 a.m.

The main door accidentally closed and we were left outside in slippers and without a phone in the middle of the night. The only thing we could hear were some deer and wolves somewhere in the woods.

After a few minutes of panic, we started calling the hotel bell (the option of sleeping in the car was not appealing). When, the owner came down we found out that we could get in with our room key. In my defence nobody told us that we could.

In summer 2016 after visiting a number of major tourist centres throughout Europe, my partner and I were so excited to explore the less crowded town of Dijon in Burgundy. We had heard about the architecturally rich city (and home of mustard) and couldn’t wait to experience it.

We researched places to eat the evening we arrived and decided on a local restaurant which had fantastic reviews online. When we arrived, we realised the language barrier was much more of an issue than we anticipated. Thankfully a very kind bilingual stranger helped us to make sense of the menu and we each ordered our meals.

Nothing could have prepared us for what came out to our table. We had each accidentally ordered a family size serving of potato gratin, covered in bacon and various types of cheeses. While we received a number of strange looks from others, it was a memorable evening full of wine and roughly 3 kilograms of potatoes… each.

In 2010, having just turned 18, I flew to New Zealand to do a bit of travel and ultimately find somewhere to live and work. I touched down in Auckland at around 8pm and headed to my first booked hostel to discover it was fully booked beyond capacity – thanks to a major earthquake in Christchurch. First night away spent wandering the streets being a distinct possibility, I was fortunately saved by a kind man letting me sleep in the foyer of his hostel – with around 30 other people!

After university I spent a year backpacking in Australia and on the way home stopped in Thailand for a week. I saw the sights of Bangkok, did a Thai cookery course in Chaing Mai, rode an elephant and did white water rafting.

When it was time to fly back to the UK it was so hot I boarded the plane in shorts and landed back in Edinburgh to snow!

My wife and I spent our honeymoon in Italy, touring the North, from Venice to Milan.

During our time in Venice, we were enjoying a romantic sunset on the small island of San Giorgio Maggiore when a small film crew approached us and asked if we’d mind if they photographed us for a shampoo advert.

We were game for a laugh so said yes, but the irony that I might appear in a shampoo advert given that I’m follicly challenged was not lost.

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I  spent the summer in the Applecross peninsula in the Scottish Highlands, off-roading in my Land Rover over the ancient mountainous Bealach na Bà (Gaelic for Pass of the Cattle). The scenery was stunning, but the most awe-inspiring sight was watching a family of wild pine martens tucking in to a jar of jam.

I had a misspent youth travelling around, playing in a band – most of which I can no longer remember, have blocked from my memory, or dare not to repeat in polite company!

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It’s too difficult to pick one travel story as the best part is experiencing different things. I love the memories of many weeks camping and diving on a remote coral cay on the Great Barrier reef as much as hours sitting on tiny plastic chairs eating the worlds best street food in Saigon!

On a recent dream holiday to Disney World I experienced an unusual form of transport delay when I got stuck in a Haunted Mansion ‘Doom Buggy’ during a technical glitch. Thankfully I was entertained by the dancing skeletons and animatronic bats who carried on regardless until the problem was resolved and I was returned to the mortal world.

Whilst fishing on a boat off the coast of Tenerife I caught an 85Kg sting ray, then as I was leaning over the side to get the photo and release it, lost my sunglasses to the Atlantic. Ally 1 – Sting Ray 1.

Having just arrived on a visit to Santander, my friends & I realised we hadn’t eaten all day and were very hungry. There wasn’t much to eat at the airport, so we decided to go straight into town to try some traditional Spanish cuisine. We found a lovely looking tapas bar, but discovered that it was closed for SIESTA for the next 3 hours… just like every other restaurant, bar and shop in the town!

All we had in our bags at the time was a bottle of water and 4 pieces of milk chocolate. It was the longest 3 hours of my life, but chocolate never tasted so good!

I went to Fiji whilst travelling and got the chance to sleep under the stars on a sandbank in the middle of the south pacific (survivor style!). Witnessing a super moon and epic sunrise in the space of 12 hours was pretty surreal – although getting woken up by a gigantic crab chilling on me brought me back down to earth!

Whilst on honeymoon in the most romantic city in the world, Paris, we visited the Notre Dame. A big crowd had gathered and we noticed the police had cordoned off an area just outside the entrance. We got closer and I noticed a man on the ground and thought there had been an accident – not something you want to see on honeymoon. On closer inspecting we see the film crew and the make-up artist topping up the ‘dead’ man’s make-up!!

A few years ago, I went to Chicago, Illinois. After spending the day sight-seeing, eating mountains of Chicago Town pizza and other wonderfully unhealthy food that was on offer, my friends and I decided it would be a great idea to take a night-time ghost Segway Tour. Cue around 45 minutes of hilarity of learning how to actually use a Segway, the tour was cut awfully short due to the inability of the majority of our group being able to go up a hill. Still one of my favourite cities to visit and I can’t wait to go back. I might avoid the Segway tour next time.

I once took part in a cultural exchange programme to Bejiing, to attend many sports and arts events. At the final reception we were asked to perform a cultural tradition from all four countries of the UK. As one of only a handful of Scots in the party we decided to perform some Scottish Country Dancing and I was the caller/MC when all the delegates from around the world joined in. Everyone must have enjoyed themselves as they asked to keep my Jimmy Shand CD!

I went back-packing in Thailand with some friends from university, and after 4 hours crammed in a sweaty van with 8 Thai locals and a chicken, we decided to go for a well-deserved swim in the Pacific Ocean. Everyone in our group put their hotel room keys and money in a watertight pouch, which one of my friends then put in his swimming trunks’ pocket (safety first!). Unfortunately, the pouch was lost at sea and never made it back… whoever found it when it presumably washed ashore must have thought they’d hit the jackpot!

I certainly do not consider myself claustrophobic, well not until I went inside the Great Pyramid of Cheops.

I entered a 400 meter tunnel on my hands and knees and started crawling my way down – no air, a delightful smell of sweat and human kind, very limited light and no way to turn-around. Unfortunately the guy leading the expedition was a rather large laddie.. a bit too large for the two-foot high tunnel that climbed up toward the burial chamber. We all got stuck with our heads facing downwards on our way up.. for an incredibly long 15 minutes!

I expected tons of treasures and shiny jewellery when we finally reached the chamber,  but we saw nothing but an empty room and a hole on the ground where the tomb once was. Amazing. And then there was the 30 minutes back.
But it was worth the memories.

My husband persuaded me to go to Isandlwana in South Africa to see where the Anglo-Zulu war took place. I wasn’t at all convinced, but it turned out to be an amazing experience. The landscape was beautiful and after hearing the story of a battle that took so many lives, it took on an awe-inspiring quality.

Returning to Ethiopia for the second time to work in orphanages, I was eager to get back and see old friends, in particular our bus drivers son I had grown fond of during my previous visit. As I was coming out of Addis Ababa airport, the boy ran towards me wearing my favourite football teams shirt I had given him the previous year. A truly heart-warming moment.

My first family camping holiday on the North West coast of Scotland is forever ingrained in my memory. We woke at 5am to the sound of our neighbouring camper shouting “Save the Highland Park!” as she waded through a torrent of water and jumped into her car clutching a bottle of whiskey. Most of the campers evacuated in the same way abandoning shredded tents and scattered belongings blown over the bay. Three hours later we reached civilisation and wandered into a local shop in our muddy shorts and flip-flops. It all felt very surreal in the calm of a small Highland village!

I remember hiking up to the pillars of the Torres del Paine National Park in Chile. The sight of a glistening pool up there at the top amid the pillars was more than worth the 4 hour climb. That day I also learnt that whenever a sign indicates you’re only 20 minutes away from the top of a mountain, you’re actually about 1 hour!

When traveling around Scotland with few friends it was exceptionally sunny weather making the nature around us stunning and breath-taking. As I love photography and nature I had to stop up at this hill to appreciate the beautiful Scottish landscape.

While doing so we noticed that the car started moving backwards down the hill. Someone forgot to pull the hand brake before leaving the car! I chased the car, jumped into it, pulled the hand brake and almost destroyed my camera in process.

Whilst visiting New Zealand, my friends and I went for a beautiful two-day hike. The scenery was stunning, so stunning in fact that about half of the group missed the only turn on the entire hike, and by the time they realised their mistake it was too late to come back. The rest of us had a good laugh, until we found out they were carrying most of our food. We finished the hike quite hungry, but it was certainly worth it.

Hiking up with some friends to Kleine Scheidegg in Switzerland, myself and a friend managed to get lost and separated from the group. Our phone batteries had died, we were without food or water and the summer sun was beating down on us. We started to doubt whether we’d ever make it to the top! Thankfully we managed to find the path again and made it to the top where the rest of the group were waiting for us with celebratory beers.

On a weekend break to Barcelona, I chatted with an Italian girl for 10 minutes. She was very interested in the Portuguese folk music – Fado – so I suggested some bands to listen to.

A year and a half later I moved to Barcelona to do a placement. One night, I was chatting with my flatmate about Fado and she sounded very knowledgeable. She even knew some alternative bands! It sounds obvious now, but it took me one or two days to realise I was living with the girl I met the previous year who had listened to the bands I recommended!

I was in Malawi and staying near a river where we had previously been warned about wildlife from the river. One night I got up to go to the toilet in complete darkness and got halfway there before coming face to face with a massive hippo only a few meters in front of me, I very quickly, but carefully retraced my steps and got back into my bed and held on until the morning!