Orkney Islands

After three great days in Skye our next main stop was the Orkney Islands. This is the furthest north that we will go on this trip and it was a long journey to get there so we had an overnight stop in Inverness on the way. The drive from Skye to Inverness was fairly uneventful. We stopped at Loch Ness on the way but both agreed that it was no better than any of the other beautiful lochs we have seen so we didn't spend money on the cruises with sonar on board (for people going monster-hunting). We returned our hire car in Inverness so the next morning we were p early to catch a bus to Thurso. The bus was running slightly late but we made it just in time to catch the ferry to Stromness on the largest of the Orkney Islands (The mainland).

Stromness

The man who ran our hostel, George, was always up for a chat and seemed to know everyone in Stromness. The next day we hired bikes from one of his mates and cycled to some of the places on the island that the buses don't go to. I was amazed at how much there was to do. We had four nights, but we could have easily stayed for two or three weeks without getting bored.

It was very very windy. Not a problem until the last 5 miles where we were riding uphill into a 20km/hr headwind.

Skara Brae, a neolithic village from about 3000 BC  which makes it older than both Stonehenge and the Pyramids in Egypt.  It was amazing how well-preserved the site was.

The Ring of Brodgar - a stone circle in a henge, again older than Stonehenge. Thanks to our bikes we managed to miss the tour groups so we had the place to ourselves for a while. 

Ring of Brodgar.

Standing stones of Stenness. This is another stone circle but much smaller. There are only 5 stones left but there  used to be about twelve.

 On our second day we took Georges advice again and took a ferry to the next island, Hoy. We took a minibus to the other side of the island where we could walk to the Old Man of Hoy. The bus driver was a great character - he told lots of stories and jokes along the way. The best one was about a rock we passed that had windows and a door painted on it so that from the road (maybe 200m away) it looked exactly like a house. A few years ago some of the locals put up a B&B sign on the road and laughed at all the people who walked 200m through the heather to get to the house, only to find that it was actually a slab of rock.

View of Stromness from the Ferry.

View of Hoy from the Ferry. 

Cliffs of Hoy.

The Old Man of Hoy. The only way to get there was to walk for about an hour and a half . There were some climbers on top of the old man when we arrived.

Beach on Hoy

 Our next stop was Kirkwall, the largest town in the Orkneys.

Maeshowe, a neolithic tomb. Inside there are lots of viking carvings from when they found it. 

The Kirkwall City Pipe Band.