Stromness, Scotland and Hairpins!

We were up early fofr a weather check (look out of window, sea flat calm with ripples; excellent) and then brewed some hot chocolate for our morning drink rather than tea. This was because the previous night’s Horlicks had left us with a mix of water and milk in the teapot which needed to be used up before we could brew tea! Once this minor problem had been disposed off, we stowed everything securely for sea, dismantling the gas stove and tying everything down with bungess safely. The diesel in the jerrycans was decanted into the main tank, bringing us up to ¾ of a tank.

The ferry terminal in Stromness was rather boring, with only a tea/coffee machien for refreshments, so having wandered slowly about inside it for a while, we headed off to investigate the town of Stromness. It has narrow streets, paved in the ubiquitous flags but with a narrow strip of cobbles inset – possibly for grip, or so a local woman implied after Anny successfully fell over on the main street again! This time the damage was minor and lacking in bloodshed, so having achieved verticality again we proceeded with more caution for a while.

Stromness soon proved not to be fascinating, however, and we turned back to the ferry terminal to get the Kite Wagon booked in. This time, for variety, we drove forwards into the ferry (a much bigger vessel than the last) and then swung around to park up facing the stern. From there it was up to the passenger decks and a search for a good window to park ourselves by, in case of seasickness. A kindly steward advised that the best place was aft behind the reception desk so we found a good window and having dumped our bags, I left Anny guarding them and raided the café for breakfast. A bacon roll with extra egg and a mug of hot chocolate having been acquired and scoffed, I returned to the port side window and readied the phone to do photos of Hoy in passing.

The Pentland Firth turned out to be in the mood of a placid millpond, barely managing even a visible swell let alone anything perceptible. We docked without problem in Scrabster, reclaimed the Kite Wagon and headed out in search of the A9 south.

We’d agreed that our original plan – sleeping at one of the higher car parks on Cairngorm for a night – would turn out to be a cold option, so we changed our minds and decided to go for a slow reintroduction to civilisation by going straight to Maud  and journey’s end. This would also enable us to do the washing and shower!  Having decided this we set off down the A9, only to find that just after Latheronwheel and before Helmsdale, the road entered a series of h9orrendous steep hairpin bends that weren’t marked on the map! It was quite exciting to be heading apparently directly at the North Sea, visible over a few-hundred-foot cliff, only to then whisk around and be heading at 180 degrees in the opposite direction within yards. Signs saying ‘check your brakes now’ and ‘stay in low gear’ did not induce great confidence, either.

Once past all this hair-raising stuff, however, we parked up for a steadying cup of tea and some food, it being about lunchtime, and called ahead to warn that we were on the way early. Assured of a bed and dinner, we pushed on south, achieving a fine run all the way to Maud with still ¼ of a tank in hand and just about 1,300 miles on the tank since I bought the wagon exactly 14 days before!

Alas, last day on Orkney!

Leaving our overnight berth tucked behind the old WWII emplacement on top of the cliffs, we headed north to Skara Brae. Here the staff were just opening up as we arrived and we wandered slowly around the indoor display before exploring the reconstructed house just outside the centre. We agreed that probably no self-respecting Neolith would have kept live lobsters on top of their dresser, even one made of stone, but otherwise there was plenty of headroom under the high domed roof, the smoke-vent let in a good degree of light and there was as much storage space in the house as in most places, with comfortable-looking box-beds which could have accomodated generous bedding allowances of bracken, heather or dry grass rather than merely having a few deer and shep skins draped forlornly over them. With the big central hearth, we felt the house was probably quite snug and warm even in the Orkney winds – the tunnel that linked the house to the rest of the village being insulated nicely under a thick layer of refuse, seashells and assorted midden contents for that purpose.

Outside the reconstruction, we walked unhurriedly along the path, admiring a wide sandy beach that curved beautifully before a marvellously blue-and-green sea, finally reaching the enclosure where the genuine village is preserved. A kind lady there was armed with a brush and a bucket of water for cleaning seabird guano off the paths, but explained that the pair of fulmars nesting on the roof of hut 1 have been friends for 14 years and are now mates. They make a habit, apparently, of landing inside the hut and then not being able to get out again, but recently a workman carefully herded them through the door and along the corridor, thus showing the birds the correct exit procedure, and now they remove themselves from the hut without assistance.

The huts are fairly small, perhaps twenty feet across, but provide all the basics of civilisation; beds, hearths, storage facilities, a place to display one’s treasures on a stone dresser facing the door and the neighbours (perhaps close kin?) living next door along the corridor. One hut even appeared to have a granny-flat annexe to the main building! Apparently the midden was laid down first and only when it had accumulated sufficient depth and density was the village tunnelled into it and the individual rooms built in the typical flat, nicely-laid flagstone architecture of the Orkneys.

Having completed our slow perambulation, we headed back to the visitor centre and breakfast; Earl Grey tea and the local cheese board for me, scone and jam for Anny. We followed the good food with a tour of the gift shop (naturally) and then enquired about refilling the water tank, which had just provided us with our morning tea before running empty on us. The kitchen staff kindly shoved our 10L tank under their tap and even apologised for not knowing how to work the complicated sealing arrangements!

With everything now at hand and no need to be anywhere before the ferry terminal tomorrow, we decided that a lazy afternoon on a beach somewhere would be good. We ran down to Stromness, getting a feel for the ferry terminal’s position, then on over the hill to a little carpark at the end of a narrow lane with a lovely view over Pulse Skerry to the Atlantic, Hoy and Hoy Sound to the south. We spent the afternoon unwinding in warm sunshine, buzzed gently by a variety of seabirds and visited by various dogs and their walkers, as well as the antics of the local sea-kayaking group practising emergency drills off the beach.

We decided to follow up last night’s limpet deluxe with crispy fried nettles to accompany a ham-and-cheese scrambled egg dish, which all turned out to be delicious. More glorious sunsets ensured in due course, captured on the phone (pics later!) and we settled down for our last night on Orkney. Alas!

The Rings

(Post should have been 28th but no phone signal to post!)
Today began with groans and moans as yesterday's bruises took their toll on Anny's back and legs, but the application of a heat pad overnight was declared to have been a great help and the application of tea, heat and breakfast helped greatly. We headed for Maes Howe for the second attempt, arriving safely as before and parking with great deliberation, extremely close to the kerb, with the aim of foiling any attempt on Anny's part to trip over again. I stood close at hand and prepared to catch any staggers but in fact this time the disembarkation process proceeded flawlessly and we made it inside safely to be greeted by anxious staff. Having satisfied themselves that Anny was in fact recovered and healthy, we were ushered into an excellent tour of Maes Howe.
The chamber itself was fascinating and it was a pity (but understandable) that all access has to be by guided tour. I would have enjoyed ferreting into the side chambers and reading all the runic graffitti in peace but it was not to be. Interestingly both Anny and I felt that the place was not a tomb at all but an initiation space, since it felt so very different from the Tomb of the Eagles and Banks Chambered Cairn, neither of which had provided any kind of echo or reverberation when we were in them while Maes Howe provided excellent echo space and, of course, has the three internal chambers to be shut up individually and the famous light-box for midwinter sunrise.
Maes Howe completed, we checked a few directions with a compass to confirm what we felt about the landscape alignments (such as where the sun would rise and set behind various hills) and then set off to investigate the Stones of Stenness, which were visible from Maes Howe quite easily (as indeed was the Ring of Brodgar). The Stones turned out to have a very fine wide layby so we had a pot of tea.
Thus fortified, we sallied forth into the field to investigate the Stones of Stenness, a fine tall monument of five standing stones (surviving) and a pair of slim pillars with a fallen slab of a dolmen next to them.We paced both ways around the circle individually, both of us finding that we were drawn to enter the circle at the same place (which turned out to be the 'correct' entrance spot according to the archeology/interpretation boards at the entrance when we checked later). Standing on the dolmen and looking through the gap between the two uprights by it gave a view of Maes Howe, which was interesting as these two monuments were in use at the same time (c.7,000 years ago).
Having pranced about the Stones for a while, we investigated the village a couple of hundred yards away which was also in use at the same time as the Stones. This turned out to be fascinating as we both immediately felt sure it was a 'ceremonial' settlement rather than a normal everyday village, where the population were perhaps serving a period looking after the Stones. One building in particular was very definitely used, we felt, by groups of people, as it had an outer wall which enclosed an inner building. The outer area felt watery, with a covered drain in one corner, a wider section that felt like a seating area and lots of moss and soft ground underfoot. It felt like a place for ablutions. Proceeding around this space, one came to the diametrically opposite entrance to the inner area, which had a low doorway section and then a hearth set in the doorway of an inner room, which had another very large hearth in its centre and low walls that proved ideal for sitting on while, perhaps, story-telling, feasting or other communal activities in a wall, enclosed (perhaps sauna-like?) atmosphere. There was also a small drain in the corner that led out into the covered drain we'd noticed outside, so providing indoor sanitation as well!
After this, we had a look at the Watchstone at the end of the bridge to the Ness of Brodgar, a narrow space of water separating south-west to north-east land between the Lochs of Harray and Stenness. it was a very imposing guardian of the crossing point and an offering of three red-skinned potatoes, a neep, a bulb of garlic and a carrot lay tidily at its foot, which was fascinating.
We retired to the Kite Wagon and proceeded across the Ness of Brodgar to the car park at the Ring of Brodgar, the younger and much bigger ring of standing stones on a slight hill above the lochs and all of perhaps a hundred yards from the Stones of Stenness. They also had many fascinating aspects and we took several photos and a number of compass bearings before retiring to the Wagon to lunch, drink tea and rest fevered brows and over-worked brains for a time.
Deciding that doing Skara Brae on the same day was too much, we drove to a marvellous clifftop WWII ex-gun post on the western coast named Yesnaby and collapsed to rest. A short walk gave us a fine set of views of the coast, some sunning seals, lots of seabird roosts and, on the way back, a pocketful of limpets hammered off the rocks with a pebble. We boiled them briefly in butter and Raven beer (a fine Orcadian brew) before consuming them with bread and butter. It was a very fine end to a magnificent day!

Kirkwall. Repeatedly!

All began nicely this morning with a pot of tea, and then the gas cylinder ran out. Admittedly we've been using it for supplemental heating in the uninsulated Kite Wagon as well as tea and cooking! We had planned a slow trundle north over the Churchill Barriers, pausing on Lamb Holm to see what the Orkney Wine Company might offer before achieving Kirkwall and shops, but the idea of going tea-less until 11 when the Wine Company opened its doors was intolerable! We traded possible opening lines for novels beginning 'By the faint glimmer of a dying gas stove' while drinking our tea, then went straight to Kirkwall instead. After various wanderings and directions gas-cylinder-wards by randomly chosen but uniformly friendly and helpful natives, we located (in chronological order) the banks, a local arts shop selling all sorts of hand-made items, book shops, the main Calor dealer and a shop which sold us the remaining map of Orkney which we needed! All missions thus achieved, we went back to the Orkney Wine Company shop where we enjoyed a tasting session, acquired various gifts and some North Ronaldsay sheepskins!
After this we turned north again, passing through Kirkwall again and taking the road for Maes Howe.
We arrived at Maes Howe in due course and parked in a super big space in their car park. So far so good! I hopped out and paused while Anny alighted, and then - oh, drama! Anny fell over the kerb in stepping back and performed quite the most polished and dramatic full-length hurtle to the ground I think I've seen! Leaving the keys in the door lock I hurled myself after her, although I landed tidily and compos mentis on one knee rather than landing on the back of my head and tailbone, and for a minute or two tried the strategy of informing the patient that she was to take her time, all was ok. This worked well. All was not altogether well, however, as a pool of blood was becoming visible under said patient's head. I tried a calm and reassuring tone of voice while saying 'you've cut your head a bit, when you're ready let's get you inside and sit you down safely', which also apparently worked well. Anny got herself on her feet without screams of agony, although dripping gore vividly in all directions, and we tottered the 30 yards or so into the visitor centre. Greeting the receptionist with a request for their first aid kit set the scene nicely and in very short order a chair was produced, their staff first aider summoned forth and I was able to ferret through the gore and decide life threatening injuries had been avoided. To be on the safe side, however, an ambulance was summoned and I had the interesting experience of chasing the ambulance at 60 miles an hour back to Kirkwall and the Balfour Hospital.
X-rays proving nothing had been broken, the offending scalp was given a stitch for safety's sake and we were sent off to enjoy some sunshine. We toddled a few miles back towards Maes Howe at a far lower and less hair-raising speed, then parked up in a nice layby and put the kettle on. Enough for one day! The patient accepted tea, fudge and adopted a lateral posture in her sleeping bag to doze and rest for the remainder of the day. We've had some highly therapeutic creamed rice and are now settling for the night. We'll try for Maes Howe again tomorrow!

Orkney!

Wow! After a seriously rocky night in our quarry (heaven only knows how bad it would have been without that shelter!) we headed to the ferry at crack of dawn (or at least early in the morning). The ferry terminal has a well-equipped cafe with excellent draught-proofing and heating so having checked in and paid up, we settled to wait for the ferrry with bacon roll and mugs of hot chocolate. Sheer luxury!
Boarding the ferry turned out to be by swinging around and reversing down the loading ramp - slightly nerve-wracking as we were surrounded by very competant commercial coach, lorry and tanker drivers so I felt somewhat on my mettle! The manouvre was safely acheived in one go however and the similarly competant ship's crew marshalled all the vehicles into place, tight-packed as sardines, then chained them all down very securely. We repaired to a comfortable lounge area to enjoy the view.
Once underway we were soon heading into a quartering four-foot chop that did for Anny's stomach. Fortunately they were plenty of sea-sick bags provided and it wasn't far to the ladies'! I confined myself to handing fresh bags and tissues over, interspersed with time-checks and encouragement to admire the view and watch the horizon! Once we landed all was soon well however and we arrived safely at the Tomb of the Eagles in Isbister at the southern end of South Ronaldsay within 40 minutes of landing despite a pause to change clothes and regain land-legs!
The Tomb of the Eagles is a 5,000 year old chambered tomb, consisting of five chambers in which various human remains were found. The walls are built from slabs of the local rock, which naturally fractures into flat slabs of excellent size and sturdiness. I crawled into the tomb on hands and knees, although Anny chose a giant skateboard and hauled herself in hand over hand along a rope fixed for this purpose! Once inside, skylights in the modern concrete roof (necessary protection) allowed us to see the chambers clearly and we fossicked about happily for half an hour or so before setting out on the mile-long and incredibly windy trek back to the interpretation centre in search of a cup of tea. About halway back we passed a bronze age structure, again stone built, which we agreed was definitely a sauna house!
The interpretation centre, although excellent in many regards, sadly offered only a coffee machine and no seats. It was by then gone 2pm and we agreed to sally forth and try the bistro next foor. Never has a better decision been made! Not only was the bistro superb, providing us with a pot of Earl Grey tea, locally-sourced beef lasagne and homemade salad followed by coffee and Orkney ice-cream for Anny (I passed on putting anything cold into my core in the face of the icy gale blowing outside!) But they also had a neolithic chambered tomb!! We're both hugely envious of the people here - everyone seems to have masses of fabulous archeology on their doorsteps and oin this case, right smack in the middle of their car park! Stunning!
Better yet, the Banks chambered cairn is hardly even touched by archeologists yet - a major surprise given its size and the vast array of human remains found in the only chamber (of 6) that has been excavated to date. We spent some time in a little hut that sits by the side of the car park and were shown photos and some of the very finds excavated just last month, even handling some of them (they're in the process of being slowly dried and warmed to avoid them fragmenting) while the very man who owns the place told us the story of the tomb's discovery and exploration as he and his wife had lived it! After that it was into the tomb itself, crouching under the original roof to examine bones jutting from the ground at our feet, 5,000 year old marks carved into the roof and peering by torchlight into the still rubble-filled remaining chambers, all guided by a super young supply teacher who'd taken the job just that morning as a summer job! It was a privilege to pay £5 each towards the future excavation and preservation of tha site.
Stunned and surfeited (and provided with inside info on other stunning tombs to visit on Rousay!) we thanked the Skerries Bistro and Banks Chambered Tomb folks for a fabulous afternoon and trundled off to find our campsite for tha night. Weemys campsite was soon found and is proving very satisfactory so far; there are hot showers and we've been able to park nose to wind in the lee of a caravan and half-built bothy, so for now the Kite Wagon is lying in relative peace under blue skies and we're allowing our excitement to subside gently. Tomorrow we plan to drive round to the north, leaving South Ronaldsay behind and arriving on the Orcadian Mainland, where we hope to visit a craft and food centre promoting local artists and artisans, then on west to the heart of Neolithic Orkney.

John O'Groats!

Dornoch gave us an amazingly wet and windy night (but no leaks in the Kite Wagon - we slept very well despite the weather) and having collected our dry washing and refilled the water tank, it was off for Forsinard and the Flow Country. By half past eight we were thundering up the A9 with a topped-up fuel tank and all set, despite the continuing northerly winds and showers, for another great day's adventuring.
At Helmsdale we turned off the A9 and took the lovely, scenic and single-track-with-passing-places A897 to Forsinard, where we had to turn round and come back to find the tiny RSPB centre, housed inside the old station buildings. We browsed the souvenir badges and picked up a red kite (naturally), a magpie, a wildcat, a barn owl and a golden eagle! Having done merchandising and wandered around the small but very informative displays, we girded our loins and sallied forth on a short walk through the bogs - on a safely paved path. We heard curlew and saw larks, the dwarf birch just budding and the bog cotton nearly flowering but otherwise the country was still very wintry.
Our expedition completed, it was back to the Kite Wagon to heat up tomato soup, brew a pot of tea and devour bread and cheese with the soup for lunch. By half past one we were on the move again, continuing north for the coast. We spotted the vanishing rear end of a very stocky, thick-tailed tabby cat vanishing up a bank at a place called Trantlemore, so we think it may have been a wildcat, who do live in the area! If so, that's quite a notable sighting for us as neither of us have seen one in the wild before!
We reached the coast road and hung a right, reaching Thurso before half past two, so decided to push on for John O'Groats - it seemed a shame not to get there while we were so close! On the way we checked out Gills Bay, where we catch the ferry tomorrow, and on parking at John O'Groats, the trip meter read 1009! I set it when I first filled the tank just tten days ago almost at the other end of the country so this feels like a significant milestone.
Once we'd frozen our fingers taking proof-we-were-here pics, we made hurriedly off in search of a less windy overnight spot. We're now parked in an old quarry above the village, kindly pointed out to us by a lovely lady in the post office, and drinking hot chocolate. An early night awaits, then early tomorrow we go to meet the ferry!

From Caves to Coast

This morning we were on the move swiftly, pausing only for a pot of tea before donning waterproofs and setting off to find the Inchnadamph bone caves. The path took us past a chambered cairn, which we paused to examine. Thus beguiled from the path we strayed into botany, spotting various interesting plants such as mountain thyme, sundew, some beautiful potentillas with silver leaf edges and others we couldn't identify.
Reclaiming our attention from the flora we resumed the walk, accompanied by larks ascending all over the place and a pair of buzzards courting high over the ridge across the valley. We paused to breakfast in the shelter of some trees, then pushed on towards Cnoc nan Uamh, the Hill of Caves, where we could already see a cave mouth beckoning.
After a further half mile or so across a landscape pocked with sinkholes and sometimes unnervingly hollow underfoot, we reached the caves. Inside a wide, steeply slanted entrance a veritable torrent of white water was hurtling through the cave - we admired with awe from a safe distance, jaws dropped, before retreating slightly to have a steadying cup of tea from a flask.
The second cave we reached was much less staggering, being a gently-dripping affair some seven or eight feet high rather than a dizzying fifteen or twenty feet down in rapids; we could hear the river from beyond the cave's first chamber but since we lacked equipment, skill and inclination to take up serious spelunking, we went no further than daylight would reach! It was, surprisingly, colder inside the cave than outside in the wind-driven rain in the valley.
Having satisfied our cave-dwelling impulses for the time being we carried on up to the top of the ridge and enjoyes stunning views right down the length of Loch Assynt to the hills beyond. Deer were grazing on the heights north of the valley, a good 500 feet higher than our best efforts.
Returning to the Kite Wagon parked in Inchnadamph village, it was all change on the clothes front despite our waterproofs, then eastward on the road to Dornoch. Yet again the Kite performed superbly, handling single track roads, cattle grids and passing places as to the manner born. We stopped at one point to offer assistance to four young tourists who'd fared less carefully and ended up parked five feet down a steep bank, but they were all safe and had a phone signal to summon a tow-truck so thanked us and declined further assistance.
Dornoch is as far as we want to go for now, so we're parked overlooking the Dornoch Firth in the local caravan park, where laundry and hot showers were delightful. Despite the zig-zagging across the countryside the disel tank is still half-full from Tyndrum; we'll top off tomorrow at a garage we spotted on the A9 just past the Dornoch turning, then aim for Forsinard RSPB reserve in the Flow Country before ending tomorrow's adventures near the ferry terminal for Orkney.