"By Land and Sea"

Wed, Jul 30th 2025 at 12:40 pm - 2:00 pm

Bette Hunter is a widely travelled lady giving tourists a real taste of Scotland.

The speaker was Bette Hunter, a member of the Club, who gave a talk entitled ‘By Air, Land and Sea’ describing with humour her time as a Scottish Tour Guide. The ‘Air’ section in the title referred to her 9 months as guide on helicopter tours. All her other tours were either on land or by sea. She worked with American tourists on the ‘Queen of Scotland’, a fully restored train dating from the 1890s with all mod-cons, with visits to the private estates of Achnacarry, Brodie Castle and Dunrobin Castle (her favourite). Other trips included visits to Sleat and Dunvegan on Skye. Then there were the Golf Tours to Gullane (staying in the wonderful Grey Walls Hotel), Turnberry, Machrihanish. Bette worked on 'The Hebridean Princess', a converted ferry, for tours to Mull, Rum, the Summer Isles and Cape Wrath -where killer whales circled the boat; then on the 'Swan Hellenic Minerva' to Orkney, Shetland and Iceland. Pursuits on tours included music recitals, swimming in Loch Lomond, sumptuous dinners, celiidhs and dinner-dances until dawn, wine- and whisky- tasting. Ghosts featured in the many ancient castles, particularly the ghost of a little boy in Glamis, and a smoker, thought to be James VI, at Stirling. Iain McIver gave the vote of thanks to Bette for a talk which was well received by the members.