We've been enjoying some great weather this Spring in Scotland so long may it continue. Our tours are proving to be exceptionally busy this year, and consequently, if you are contemplating joining us on a trip, early booking is advisable, as the tours are filling up fast.

June and July are the perfect months for those joining tours to Iona, Mull and Skye to enjoy optional visits (weather permitting) to the sensational island of Staffa, lying six nautical miles out into the swell of the atlantic to see the wondrous collection of seabirds that inhabit this truly remarkable island. Puffins are there in abundance just now, with about 300 breeding pairs. The puffins share the island with guillemots, cormorants, shags, fulmars, gannets and the great skua to name a few. With the great skua, the puffins' predator, many travellers thrill to find that their presence on the island is a help rather than a hinderance for the puffin colony. Sitting quietly on the cliff tops deters the skuas, allowing the puffins to make that often perilous flight for home without being attacked. Other sealife inhabiting Scottish waters can often be spotted , from seals, dolphins, porpoise, basking sharks, and the rarely seen but absolutely breath taking Orca, killer whale! With such a plethora of wildlife and aquatic life on our doorsteps enriching the beauty of our landscapes, the excitement is only just beginning when you step aboard the bus!

The magnificent island of Staffa with its basalt columns	Puffins nesting on the island
Inspirational Award Thursday 11th June 2009 marked another great milestone for Rabbie's when we were honoured with another award at Prince Charles's Scottish Business in the Community Awards for Excellence. The Judges issued Rabbie's with a Special Judges Award for "Inspiration", which we understand is only occasionally given out. They awarded us "for tackling climate change in a highly appropriate way for their core businesses, for being innovative and thorough, and generous in sharing their learning, for being an inspiration to SMEs." It was a great honour for a small company like ours to be recognised this way in front of an audience of Corporate Scottish businesses. It recognised our success in reducing our passengers' carbon footprint by 21% last year in an ongoing programme we are undertaking to reduce our detrimental impacts on the environment and enhance the benefits of our Sustainable tourism policies. Donation to Trees for Life In a weekend-long celebration of the purchase of the 10,000 acre Dundreggan Estate by Trees for Life, the charity’s supporters, directors, staff and special guests gathered on Saturday 6th June at the estate in Glen Moriston, to the west of Loch Ness. Calum Macnee, General Manager of Rabbie’s, attended the celebration and planted an aspen tree to commemorate Rabbie ’s support for Trees for Life. Trees for Life patrons, author and ornithologist Roy Dennis MBE and author and broadcaster Vanessa Collingridge were present for champagne toasts, a three course dinner and presentations. A plaque was dedicated to all of the ‘Dundreggan Champions’ whose generous donations made the £1.65 million purchase of the estate last summer possible. Alan Watson Featherstone, Trees for Life’s Executive Director, said: “We’re very grateful for the support we have received from Rabbie’s Trail Burners which is helping make our work on the Dundreggan Estate possible. The estate is going to be restored as an outstanding wild landscape that will bring great benefits to the environment and Scotland for decades to come. The commemorative trees we’ve planted this weekend symbolise the beginning of our long-term conservation project for this very special area.” We recently donated £3250 raised through a self imposed  ‘carbon tax’ of £10 per tonne of carbon used in operating our tours to Trees for Life, Scottish Wildlife Trust and the National Trust for Scotland. The Trees for Life project was unanimously voted for by all the Rabbie's staff as a worthy recipient, especially as many of our customers enjoy the fruits of their efforts in Glen Afrric on our Highland 2 day Tour to Loch Ness and Inverness. Something Very Different If you like Edinburgh and cycling you will like this. Amazing views of Edinburgh brought to life by a young hero from Skye, Danny MacAskill.
Other news: Rabbie's would like to welcome our new lads and lassies into the fold - Helen, Andrew, Ralph, Duncan, Peter, Colin , and 2 Davids, who are all looking forward to taking you on tour soon. Sadly we recently said goodbye to Pete, from the sales team, who was given the opportunity of his life time when offered a job singing for his supper in China! If any of you happen to be in the Sheku district of Hongkong, then why not pop in to the Irish pub offering traditional music and say "hello" Pete performs six days a week playing his fiddle and guitar. As well as Facebook, where everyone can keep in touch with each other and us at Rabbie's Travel, we are now also on Twitter, and tweet on a daily basis! Any followers? With the Homecoming Year well under way and gathering momentum, I thought that it would be a good time to become better acquainted with our no.1 national treasure, and undeniably a huge symbol of this year's events, Rabbie Burns.

Robert Burns' Cottage, Alloway - built by his father William Burness
Front View	Back View

ABOUT ROBERT BURNS - A SHORT SYNPOSIS OF THE BARD'S LIFE.

In 1757 William Burness brought his wife, Agnes Brown from Maybole to join him in this lovely traditional cottage that he had built himself. John Murdoch, a learned scholar and teacher, said of Burns' father " I myself have always considered him as by far the best of the human race that ever I had the pleasure of being acquainted with."

Today Robert Burns is recognised as being a very well educated man, as were many children in Scotland during this period, despite many families' humble means. Burns' parents strove to ensure that their offspring received the best education they could provide. Burns was six when he went to school at Alloway Miln for a few months, and thereafter received further education through the tutorial skills of John Murdoch, after he was appointed by Burns' father and a few neighbours to the position. His progress was rapid in reading, writing and spelling, with his education in arithmetic being taught to him laterally by his father, who also encouraged them all to read after their hard days toil on the farm.

Between 1766 and 1777 William then leased the farm of Mount Oliphant, moving his family there, but the farm was soon to become a burden and fail. Their plight was further exacerbated by the grim and rather mean attention of the cruel factor on the land. It was with great delight then, that William was able to lease Lochlea farm, near Tarbolten, moving the family there 11 years later. Burns and his brothers helped on the farm, and in the end Burns spent 7 years here acquiring all the guile, wit, compassion and sentiment that would shape his character and the poet he was to become.

At 19 years old Burns went off to study land surveying under a new school master, and in 1781 left the farm to try his hand in flax-dressing in Irvine. Sadly this project failed after an accidental fire, leaving Burns penniless, so with no funds, Burns with his brother Gilbert, decided to take on the lease of Mossgeil farm, nr Mauchline on their own.

About this time, Burns' father William died, and Robert Burness formerly changed the spelling of his name to Robert Burns. Robert and his brother worked Mossgiel farm for 4 years, but again the farm was to prove tough and difficult despite their best efforts. It was during this period of great hardship that Burns threw himself into writing his poetry, and indeed some of his finest songs. Several of his works were inspired by Mary Campbell, or( Highland Mary), and the other lassies that aroused his attentions now that the restraining influence of his father was no longer present. Burns' relationships with women were many as were the offspring created during those entanglements. Of the 14 acknowledged children that he was to sire, only 5 of them were born during wedlock, although true to the man's character, he welcomed all of his children into his home and showed an eagerness to do so, and to support them all financially.

In 1785 Burns met and fell for Jean Armour, or Bonnie Jean as she was to him, but her father disapproved of their relationship due to Burns' poverty, and although the pair were betrothed, an angry and indignant Mr Armour ensured that their marriage certificate was defaced thus losing its credibility, and legal status. This episode, coupled with both himself and his brother resolving to give up the farm, threw Burns into so much heartache and despair that he was at the point of sailing for Jamaica. His landlord at Mossgiel farm encouraged him to publish his poetry as a means of raising the fare, and as a result "The Kimarnock Edition" was published. An interest in a second edition of poems - "The Edinburgh Edition" encouraged Burns to seek his fortune at home. His arrival in Edinburgh in 1787 saw the poet laterally becoming toasted as " the ploughman poet". His newly acquired fame also gave him the leverage with which to travel to the Borders and the Highlands of the country, where he was deeply inspired by all that he saw and experienced.

Burns finally did marry Jean Armour, the woman whom he truly loved, and took on the lease of Ellisland farm, in Dumfriesshire, and found occupation in the excise department, leaving the farm to various hired hands, although the farm was yet another failure, and he finally gave up on it. For the rest of this life Burns lived in Dumfries with his wife and children. His health declining from 1794, probably due to a weakened heart with all his young years spent toiling outside in all conditions, although many believe his excesses in life of drink and women did nothing to fortify his good health! Sadly one of the country's best loved sons died at the young age of 37, in 1796.

Burns 'though has left Scotland (and the world) with the greatest legacy of poems and songs, written in the wonderfully descriptive Scots dialect, and as the great man wrote "My hearts in the Highlands". Who are we to disagree? A sentiment echoed today by all of us at Rabbie's!

More on Robert Burns, who we named the Rabbie's after........