On Monday we visited what is probably one of the most important Neolithic archaeological sites that has been discovered. This “New Stone Age” village was built at the time when hunter gather humans learnt how to farm and started settling, building permanent dwellings. Orkney would have had wild Deer and wild Boar and the settlers probably brought with them cows and sheep as well as arable farming skills. The 5,000 year old remains were uncovered (literally) in 1850 when the wind blew the sand from the top of a dune, which had been known as Skara Brae.

This is a place that I have wanted to visit of a long time, so we braved the wet and windy weather. The sun did come out eventually. Here are a few pictures.

All the way up the A9 on Friday we were warned that there would be high winds on Sunday and Monday. The weather forecasts said that there would be storms; even Simon (the owner of the cottage we are staying in) said as much when we arrived on Saturday. So today we have braced ourselves and every time we have seen a large grey cloud we have assumed that we would be in for a rough time. Simon said that the interesting weather would come from the west – the Brough of Birsay being the furthest west … so guess where we went!

The Brough itself is a small island off the headland with a lighthouse; it is linked by a causeway that is passable for two hours each side of low tide – not when we were there, though.

On the beach we found an example of dry stone walling … like we hope to see more of (but genuine remains) over the next couple of weeks.



Earlier in the day we had a wander around Stromness, enjoying an Orkney crab salad at Julia’s Bistro (definitely to be recommended). Next time we are in Stromness, I’ll try to take some pictures.

Well, we are here and settled in at last. Friday we set off at 06:15 (only a quarter of an hour later than we had intended) and drove all the way up to Inverness, arriving at 17:50. We stopped on the way for breakfast, lunch and probably too many coffees but the end result was that we were quite refreshed when we arrived at Glendruidh Hotel, a delightful little place that was run by Michael, the owner, waiter, barman and receptionist! His wife was the chef, but we never saw her. We spent a wonderful evening in the bar talking to Michael and Jack, one of the other guests who lives on Orkney and was also on his way over here.

Saturday dawned bright with blue skies for our drive up the A9 to Gills Bay where we caught the ferry over to the island. Jack’s tip of locking the car but not setting the alarm proved to be good advice -I hope I remember on the way back.

A 35 minute drive took us to our cottage’ where we have spent a quiet night, waking up to stormy weather! Today we’ll be off exploring.