21 September

We have to be at the ferry port in Gill's Bay at 8.45, so we go for our breakfast at 7.30. We had to pre-order our breakfast from a box-tick-menu last night, and also state when we'll appear. In this rather mundane but practical way, our breakfast is ready when we arrive, and there's no wastage of food. You get what you asked for.

I ordered smoked haddock with a poached egg, and Izzie a full Scottish breakfast. The haddock is nothing like I'm used to: it is wonderfully richly smoked and without dyes. Sumptuous!

Now we hurry to the ferry. The wind is howling and it is raining, but we are starting to love it, believe it or not! At the port, we check in our prebooked car and wait in it for the ferry to arrive.

This rainbow was there for 3 minutes, and then blue skies!

Soon enough we see the buses reverse onto the boat, then we get the go-ahead. Once parked, hand brake on, we get out and climb one deck up to the lounge. I do a tour of the boat in the wind, and the ferry departs. Now you are thrown from side to side as the ferry glides through the choppy waters. We see the first neighbouring islands Stroma and Swona, and Hoy in the distance.

Lifeboat

There is life on these small islands of the Orkney archipelago! Crofters have sheep and plough fields.

One of many lighthouses in this region

And then the ferry rounds the island of South Ronaldsay to moor at St Margaret's Hope harbour.

South Ronaldsay is linked to the Isle of Burray, Glimpsholm, Lambholm and the main island by way of causeways, built in the war to keep the British fleet at Scapa Flow safe.

We are not surprised at the shipwrecks here!

Solo flight above us - I love the image!

We arrive at the Italian Chapel. I was intrigued! From 1942 - 44 200 Italian prisoners of war were sent to Camp 60 on Lambholm to assist with the building of causeways called the Churchill Barriers, to block sea access to Scapa Flow, where the British fleet had a presence. The powers that be agreed the these prisoners should have a chapel, so they were given two Nissen huts, that's all. The Italians joined them together end-to-end, and used concrete left over from the barriers to create a façade that hid the Nissen huts and made it look like a church.

Domenico Chiocchetti, the most talented artist among them, painted the entire sanctuary, and the others the rest of the walls and ceilings. One man was a blacksmith and did the ironwork. They even made light holders out of corned beef tins! For the baptismal font they took the inside of a car exhaust and covered it with a layer of concrete.

To this day there are strong ties between Orkney and the city of Moena in Trentino, Italy, the home town of Domenico Chiocchetti.

Now we venture onto the main island of Orkney. We are gobsmacked to see the prosperity and hive of agricultural activity in this outback! In my head I had a picture of a few crofters eking out a living on an inhospitable island in the rain and mist and wind. The opposite is true! All the land is worked. Wheat and fodder are the main crops, but the sheer multitude of livestock (cattle and sheep) is mind-blowing! There is not an inch of soil not spoken for. The camps and fields are neatly edged with low stone walls running right to the edge of time. The houses are either old stone edifices or newbuilds treated with pebbledash. I have a particular dislike for pebbledash, but ChatGPT informs me there is a good reason for this dreary look: the weather! With this amount of strong wind and rain, stone is inclined to be eaten away, and evenly plastered, painted walls will come a'cropper in no time and require upkeep. This pebbledash is a brilliant solution!

The herds of Black Angus cattle boggle the mind! How do they get all this meat off the island? We pass through the capital Kirkwall.

When you see a building like this, usually black, it is a distillery, either whisky or rum,

but we are heading for the Standing Stones of Stenness and the Ring of Brodgar, two ancient sites of standing stones of about 4800 years old, older than all the other prehistoric relics in Europe. It took me a while to get my head around human life before the iron age! They had only stone, wood and mud to form things from. And shells and tusks and pelts. There are only 4 of the original 11 giant upright stones left today, with a centre fire pit, both for warmth and ceremonial reasons.

As we are not particularly lucky with the weather on this day, haha, we don't linger too long, walking among the upright stones of Stenness. There are upright stones twenty to the dozen, placed here and there on hills, probably not all prehistoric,

but one at the end of a causeway leading to the Stenness Stones is The Watchstone, also neolithic. It was the pointer in ancient times showing people where the gathering would be.

Then on to the Ring of Brodgar. The parking lot is quite a way off, and the wind and rain are hammering us, but we are snug as a bug in a rug in our double anoraks and the plastic rain ponchos we bought at Eilean Donan. But the wind!

Climate change has caused so much more rain that they had to install a boardwalk to the stones over the water-logged peat.

This ring of standing stones was probably erected over a lifetime of years by the whole community, aided by other communities. To get one stone to stand up and stay standing up for 4600 years, it needs to be sunk well into the ground. And around this Ring of 36 stones (thought originally to have been 60!) is a ditch with little causeways giving entry to the Ring, which those stone age people had to dig out with antler horns and stone axes, an amazing feat of inspiration and endurance!

There are random things we spotted on our wanderings, like this swan or two,

and others that we didn't get to see, mainly because of the season, like puffins and 'hieland coos', of which the curio shops are full. They are the tourist mascots of Northern Scotland.

Here around the Ring of Brodgar there is a whole array of prehistoric offerings, e.g. the Maeshowe chambered tomb and the Barnhouse, but it was so freezing cold and taxing to body and soul, that we declined a walk around the periphery of the Ring and all the other prehistoric relics of the area, and went straight back to refuge of the car.

Now to find our accommodation for 2 nights just outside Dounby, called Hillside View at Old Quoyscottie.

Our hosts, David and Maria, have sent us a full description of how to reach the house and let ourselves in. What a pleasant surprise! It is a spacious apartment with everything a traveller might require, thoughtfully and practically appointed. It was the highlight stay of our trip! We arrived at 3.30 and after the pounding the weather had given us, we needed a rest!