Pupils reflect on trip of a lifetime
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New year is a time when people stop to reflect on the year - and even, with the arrival of 2020, the decade - that has just passed, looking at the highs and the lows.
One group of Turriff Academy pupils have something extra special to reflect on, however, after they embarked on a three week trip to Africa in the summer.
The 15 pupils and two teachers, joined by expedition leader Dan from Outlook Expeditions, not only had the opportunity to experience two countries and cultures completely different to their own here in Scotland, but the trip also encouraged them to be independent as they took on roles including budgeting, organising food and planning transport.
Whilst in Zambia and Botswana the group also threw their all in to various community projects.
The group departed from Aberdeen Airport on June 20, and after two days of travelling arrived at their first camp site in Zambia.
After recovering from their flights, the group moved to Bovu Island on the upper side of the Zambezi River where they would get stuck in to their first community project.
Here they met with locals and learned about their lives while helping the community to build a school for its young people and improve nearby facilities.
They spent five days here before heading onwards to Mwandi.
For the next few days the group followed the Zambezi exploring various villages that they passed on the way and really got to grips with the way of life in rural Zambia.
Locals welcomed the group with open arms, and shared traditional songs and dances with them if they were camping nearby that night.
It was while embarking on this stretch of their cultural experience that the pupils' eyes were really opened to the reality of living in places still widely affected the likes of HIV - they learned that around 15 percent of people there were living with HIV compared to just 0.1 percent here in the UK.
They also learnt more about the local education system, and were surprised to learn that a full year's education in a private school in Zambia cost around £360 - a far cry from the thousands of pounds spent on private education annually in the UK, and yet viewed as equally as elite.
The group then boarded what pupil Blair Scott described in a talk to a local group as a: "rickety auld bus" to cross the border into Botswana ready for the next part of their trip.
It wasn't long before the pupils realised how different the two countries were - after passing through strict security they firstly found the roads to be in a much better condition.
They soon learnt that Botswana is a much wealthier country across the board than Zambia, and this is a result of their diamond reserves.
Their first activity in Botswana was a safari tour of Chobe National Park - home to the largest elephant population in Africa - where they saw a variety of animals with elephants and crocodiles being the most common.
Whilst at the national park they also learned about the true impact of poaching and how the local laws about both poaching and dealing with those caught poaching had changed in an attempt to combat the problem.
After spending a day at Chobe National Park, the group then travelled onwards in a bus which they said felt like luxury compared to their previous one "despite being cramped and the air con being a question of how far you could open the window".
On a nine and a half hour journey they drove round the outside of Chobe to reach their next destination - Maun.
From here they would spend a couple of days exploring an area of the Zambezi River known as the Okavanga Delta in traditional canoes known as mokoros.
This was the group's opportunity to really get close to nature, spotting more wildlife and varying flora from the waterway, and some of the pupils even took the opportunity to ditch their tents for a night and sleep under the stars.
On their second day here the group were joined at breakfast by a curious young elephant before having a run in with a buffalo!
After returning to the mainland for the next leg of their journey back into Zambia the group discovered that their bus had broken down, so decided to try their hand at public transport making a mad dash to catch the overnight bus - an experience in itself - that would get them back to the port in time for their boat.
Despite their bus being held up by a Cheetah eating its dinner in the middle of the road, they eventually made it back to Livingstone.
Through their planning and budgeting the pupils had managed to save enough money to buy pizza for one of their final meals, a welcome reprieve from a largely vegetable based diet.
On their last day the group enjoyed a trip to Victoria Falls - known locally as Mosi Ao Tunya - one of the largest waterfalls in the world and in the evening they treated themselves to a nice meal at the Cafe Zambezi to look back on everything that they had seen and learnt during their time in Africa.
Summing up their trip, Blair said: "We were all quite sad to leave, just thinking about how far we had come in that short time."
