Two-year-old Emily Plant stood at the edge of the beach of Findochty, Moray, and watched her message in a bottle sail away.

As a toddler she cannot recall the exact details of the village gala day in 2001 that she attended with her grandmother.

But now aged 17, Emily has been invited on a once in a lifetime trip to Scandinavia after her message was discovered 2000 miles away by a Russian scientist.

Over the last 15 years the bottle has managed to travel to where the tidal expert lives in the icy tundras of Salekhard, and Emily received a reply asking to collect it.

The teenager said: "I think it was sent as part of a competition to do with gala day, and it was most likely my granny who entered my name.

"I had no idea about it, and I was in bed with tonsillitis when I heard it had been found, so I was a bit confused."

However, it will not be Russia that the Buckie High School pupil will be travelling to.

Emily will now be on an all expenses paid trip to the Arctic Circle Assembly in Reykyavik.

And working shifts in the local pub means the teenager has been the talk of the town and its tourists.

She said: "It all seemed really bizarre, then a Russian lady sent me a message asking if I could go to Iceland to collect it - and that the costs would be covered.

"Now word has spread about it, folk I don't even know have been coming up to me and asking if I'm the girl with the bottle and tourists in the pub are talking about it."

Emily travels out on October 6 for the event beginning the following day.

She won't be the only Scot attending either with the first day of the conference including a keynote speech from the First Minister on Scotland and the Arctic.

The teenager added: "I'll never get a chance like this again, but I am very keen on modern studies so I would love to meet Nicola Sturgeon."