Blogs from Orkney Islands, Scotland, United Kingdom, Europe - page 4

Orkney is full of interesting things to see and the Mainland has a huge number of prehistoric monuments, mostly from the Neolithic Stone Age 5000 to 4000 years ago. Its an archaeologist´s dream with ancient village remains, burial mounds, standing stones, Iron Age broughs and viking and pictish sites. There are also unique remnants from World War II and a vibrant local arts and crafts scene. We´ve got a car today so we can take in a bit of a selection. It also proves to be handy for sheltering from the biting North wind that has come up. We visit a number of standing stones sites, the most impressive being the Ring of Brodgar, with 36 of the original 60 stones still remaining. The stones sit in the middle of a windswept plain between two lochs ... read more

Stromness to Hoy day trip There is only one ferry each way to north Hoy so I was on it in plenty of time in the morning. A nice half hour trip with good views of Tysties, Bonxies, Eider duck and Guillemots as well as Kittiwakes and other gulls. After a dry trip over arrived to a heavy squall!! . Heading up the hill I arrived at the road end to the path through the hills and a sign saying no cycling. I decided to push the bike and had a very enjoyable walk. Stopping at the loch to watch the hundred or so bonxies bathing in the water. Carrying on over the water shed the path then descended through thick heather towards Rathwick Bay. To the right of the path was the visually unimpressive ... read more

Well, here i am on the Orkneys on a very blustery ,rainy day.After arriving by ferry from Lerwick,Shetland at 11pm ,i rode to the nearby camping site together with Doug and Ollie from Bedford whom i met at Bergen Airport ,Very nice and humorful Englishmen.The Facilities were excellent (after a lady divulged the code needed to enter the the showers etc.) and at £6.50 very reasonable .Had intended travelling to Stromness but the weather put me off,so thats why i,m now able to blog.The time spent on the Shetlands was interesting and exciting visiting Bird colonies in the South at Sumburgh in the the North on Unst which was quite a long trip but after seeing 10 of thousends of bird hatching and feeding their young on the steep cliffs at Hermaness in northern Unst ,it ... read more

Today we were in Kirkwall in the Orkney Islands which are part of Scotland. There are 70 islands but only 20 of them are inhabited. 15,000 people live on the “Mainland” with another 5000 on the other islands. We were supposed to tender into the port but it was too windy so we docked instead. Since the tour times were based on tendering they made announcements with the new tour times. We had gone up to the Lido to get breakfast just before 7 since we had to be in the lounge at 8:10 but that was changed to 8:50. Dennis was scheduled for the WWII & Scapa Underwater Adventure by Remote control Camera (Erin had canceled after finding out it wasn’t going to be accessible enough for her). However, they had to cancel the tour ... read more

It literally* took trains planes and automobiles to get Jordan and I started on this journey. The Orkney Isles are at the northern tip of Scotland, and though closer to scotland than Iceland or Norway, they are a far more difficult place to get to. We had to take a train from Edinburgh to Inverness, then switch trains at Inverness to go up to Thurso, then take a bus to the ferry terminal at Scrabster, then take a ferry across the Pentland Firth to the small town of Stromness on the Orkney mainland. Whew! It was exhausting, but well worth it on the ferry when the bleak yet beautiful Isles came into view. We chatted with a couple from Switzerland who were traveling all over Scotland, camping and hillwalking some of the most beautiful remote places ... read more