With only a few hours to go until the Opening Ceremony, the Queen’s Baton Relay drew towards the end of its 288 day, 190,000 mile journey around 70 nations of the Commonwealth with a stopover at its new spiritual home at Scotland Street in the Games Village.

The baton was warmly greeted by both the Scottish sunshine, and by athletes from Team Scotland, who passed it hand-to-hand down one side of the street and back up again, ensuring everyone present got their own special reminder of the visit.

But the Queen’s Baton visit didn’t end there. In a special gesture of goodwill, Team Scotland decided to use some of the time allocated to it to transport the baton down to the nearby residence of Team Fiji – the only nation in the Commonwealth the Baton Relay hadn’t managed to visit on its round the world journey.

Led by Team Scotland deputy flagbearers, Linda Clement of Hockey and Alex Marshall of Lawn Bowls, a procession of blue and white snaked its way round to Fiji, marching to a spontaneous rendition of Flower of Scotland by the athletes.

There they were met by a welcoming and clearly emotional Fijian Team whose Chef de Mission thanked the Scots warmly for their gesture before the athletes treated the Scots visitors to a melodic rendition of their own national anthem in a memorable Commonwealth Games moment.

Photo credit: Jeff Holmes