A pair of Fife twins yesterday told of their astonishment after they got a reply to their message in a bottle from pupils nearly 300 miles away.
Five-year-olds Angus and Archie Hughes received a reply from children in Orkney after tossing a plastic bottle containing their names, addresses and a treasure map into the Firth of Forth near their home in Buckhaven last month.
Their scribbled message travelled 281 miles to the remote northern islands where it washed up on the beach of South Ronaldsay.
Surprised pupils at Hope Primary School then used the bottled note as part of a class project on the seashore, before they sent an answer to the twins.
Their reply read: “We’ve looked at the map to see where you live and where the bottle travelled to get here.
“We looked at your treasure map. We are going to use it to have a treasure hunt in the school grounds and then are going to write stories about it.
“We’re also going to send a message in a bottle. We hope someone finds it.”
The twins were over the moon when they got their reply.
Excited Angus yesterday said : “I was bouncing up and down.”
Head teacher at Hope Primary, Tom Hill, said: “Orkney is quite a remote place and children here don’t usually leave the island more than two or three times a year so it is great that they now have a dialogue with pupils from this other school hundreds of miles away.
“When some pupils found the bottle on the beach, they handed it to their teacher and she did what any good teacher would do and incorporated it into their class project which is about the sea shore this year.
“The children wrote back to the pupils in Fife and as a result there is now quite a nice dialogue between the two schools.