The Queen's baton will reach its final destination at the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games after a journey of more than 120,000 miles.

The baton has travelled through 70 nations and territories since it was sent on its way by the Queen at Buckingham Palace last October.

The unique hand-crafted baton, made of titanium, wood and granite, has been carried by tens of thousands around the globe during its epic 248-day tour around the Commonwealth.

It visited Asia, Oceania, Africa, North and South America, the Caribbean and Europe before returning to the UK and finally to Scotland.

Baton-bearers have included top athletes and celebrities such as Britain's most successful Olympian Sir Chris Hoy, diver Tom Daley and singer Susan Boyle.

But thousands more "local champions" have also held aloft the symbol of the Glasgow Games on its journey.

Its final lap took the baton the length and breadth of Scotland for 40 days, with 4,000 bearers joining in the nation's biggest ever relay in more than 400 communities.

The baton arrived in Glasgow on Sunday, and will be handed back to the Queen at the opening ceremony at Celtic Park tonight.

There the Queen will officially begin the Games by reading aloud her message of support to Commonwealth athletes, which she placed inside the baton at the start of its journey.

The secret note was written during a summer stay at her Scottish retreat of Balmoral and was housed in a transparent cylinder within the baton's pure titanium lattice-work frame.

The relay is a tradition that started in 1958, and symbolises the gathering of people from across the Commonwealth.

It shares similarities with the Olympic torch relay, but there is only one baton rather than the hundreds of torches used to carry the Olympic flame.