AROUND 200 men and women stripped off for the 2016 World Naked Bike Ride in St Kilda, Australia yesterday (February 28).
Riders were encouraged to be 'as bare as they dare' during the annual 9-mile bike ride around the Melbourne suburb, which aims to peacefully protest issues including body image, cyclists safety and alternative lifestyles.
It's a long way from life at it's Scottish namesake - an isolated archipelago, 40 miles west of North Uist in the Outer Hebrides.
While the thousands living in the Aussie suburb were able to see riders with painted messages across their bodies, highlighting the importance of environmental issues, nudism and cyclist safety, there are no permanent residents on the Scottish islands.
The two areas have been linked through history as 42 islanders emigrated to Australia in the 1850s.
While many of the emigrants died en-route, a few were able to settle in Melbourne and the suburb of the city was called St Kilda - after the schooner Lady of St Kilda was moored there around this time by Charles La Trobe and the ship's master Lieutenant James Ross Lawrence.
So to mark the 2016 World Naked Bike Ride in St Kilda, we take a closer look at the Scottish islands - where there's definitely no nude cycling.
The islands were are unlikely to have been populated by more than 180 people. The entire population was evacuated from the only inhabited island, Hirta, in 1930 due to illness and upheaval of World War I. The only year-round residents now are military personnel, with conservation workers, volunteers and scientists on the islands during the summer months.
St Kilda contains the westernmost islands of the Outer Hebrides of Scotland.
Go big or go home
The largest island n St Kilda is Hirta, whose sea cliffs are the highest in the United Kingdom.
World Heritage Site
St Kilda is one of only 24 global locations to be awarded World Heritage Status for its natural and cultural significance. It is one of six in Scotland.
St Kilda is Europe's most important seabird colony, and one of the major seabird breeding stations in the North Atlantic. Northern gannets, Atlantic puffins, and northern fulmars can be found here.
Two different early sheep types have survived on these remote islands, the Soay, a Neolithic type, and the Boreray, an Iron Age type.
The medieval village of Hirta remains to this day with over 1,400 stone-built cleitean for storing food and fuel are scattered all over the islands.
There have been various theories over the origin of St Kilda's name, which dates from the late 16th century. While there is no saint known by the name, Scots traveller and writer Hamish Haswell-Smith noted that the full name St Kilda first appears on a Dutch map dated 1666.
Take a dive
The islands are some of the best places in the UK for diving thanks to the stunning, clear water and its numerous caves, tunnels and arches.
A natural wonder
In a 2005 poll of Radio Times readers, St Kilda was named as the ninth greatest natural wonder in the British Isles.
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