Saturday 31st August. Day 14
A beautiful sunny day. Our last on the island. Dex and I went for a walk in the morning sun.
There were 2 cruise liners this morning, it was going to be a busy day in Kirkwall!
I was so thrilled to see a curlew feeding in the bay.
We met a lovely lady with her dog who was born on Rousay and lived there all her life with her extended family. She moved to Orkney mainland last year to be with her daughter and grandchildren after her husband died. She was so friendly and it was lovely to hear what a wonderful life she had led and the sense of community. All her family had left Rousay so she was making a fresh start.
We set off for Kirkwall and managed to find a good parking spot. We passed Radio Orkney!
We headed to the Cathedral. Unfortunately so had all the Cruise ship passengers! However I managed to get ahead of them whilst they were having a guided tour of the outside and nipped inside to look around.
The tomb of John Rae Artic Explorer.
We were so lucky with the weather, seeing this beautiful building at its best.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Magnus_Cathedral
Across the road from the cathedral were the Bishop’s Palace and Earl’s Palace. This is the Bishop’s Palace.
This is the Earl’s Palace.
This oriel window is very rare, one of the last remaining.
It would have been difficult and expensive to build.
We had a mooch around the rest of Kirkwall. It was pretty mobbed with tourists everywhere. We ran into our friends from Glasgow with their dogs, Ralph & Luna. They said it was busier than Glasgow on a Saturday afternoon 🤣
This busker was butchering an Oasis song. We tried not to look back in anger 🤣
We had thought of going to the Highland Park distillery but it was closed for refurbishment. The shop however was very busy.
Finally a chair big enough for Mr Brookes! 😃
There was a lovely old boat in the harbour.
The queues for the trip boats back to the cruise ships were very long. We were glad not to be part of that.
We had booked a table at the Lynnfield Hotel. We had heard they had scallops on the menu and I was keen to try the local scallops.
It had a great view. Because we had Dex with us we were given a private room!
The whiskey display was really impressive but sadly no time for tasting today.
John had hot cured salmon for starters and I had Donaldson’s smoked beef with Parmesan shavings. Both absolutely delicious 😋
Then came the scallops - wow they were amazing and huge! Best I’ve ever tasted.
John had rump steak which melted in the mouth.
We both chose the Gooseberry, almond and elderflower cake with custard. Proper chef made custard it was fabulous 😋
After lunch we headed south. There were causeways linking the many islands. We stopped at the first island, Lamb Holm to see the Italian Chapel.
The Italian chapel is impressive especially as it was created by Italian prisoners of war from two Nissan huts! Their dedication to the project and creativity using the materials they had is amazing.
The inside was spectacular.
You could see planes landing at the nearby airfield.
We continued our way along the causeways working our way across the islands down to South Ronaldsay.
We could see parts of sunken vessels in the water. Apparently these ships were deliberately sunk in World War 1 to stop enemy ships being able to pass up to Scapa Flow.
We went as far south as we could just to see as much as possible. We ended up at Burwick. Not much there just a little harbour with some fishing boats so we made our way back up to St Margaret’s Hope where we would catch the ferry to Gills on the mainland.
We traveled back along the coast. Back at St Margaret’s Hope we could see the ferry in the harbour. We had decided to travel back on a different route to optimise our chances to see as much as possible.
John was pleased as it was a catamaran and he wanted to go on one.
We were early so had a while to wait.
When it was time to load we had to reverse on board. Glad John was driving!
We were lucky as the sun was shining and the sea was calm. It was very windy though!
Brucie was enjoying the fresh air!
We sailed past Swona and Stroma Islands.
Soon we were coming into Gills Bay.
A five minute journey and we arrived at the John O Groats campsite.
That was enough for one day!
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