We had a fantastic trip over the Jubilee weekend (thanks for the long weekend Ma'am!). Things didn't start too well though - tragically there was a bad road accident on the A9 in the early hours of Friday morning. This meant that we had to take a long detour over the west coast, travelling up through Fort William. We eventually pulled into Thurso at 11pm. Given the time, we drove over the to port at Scrabster, parked in the long stay car park and collapsed to sleep in the car.
We were woken early the next morning with bright sunshine streaming through the window. This was a good thing as we had to cycle the 20 odd miles across to John O'Groats to catch the 1030 ferry across to Orkney. So it was a quick breakfast, unloaded the bikes, packing up the last of our paniers and set off. It was a pleasant enough ride across the north coast. I've heard a lot of things about John O'Groats, but have never visited. Lets just says it lives up to all expectation - a very uninspiring place.
Serena searching for the John O'Groats sign post.
I'm not the best sailor and was very happy that the crossing was both short and calm! We landed on Orkney around 1130 and start the ride north to Kirkwall around the eastern edge of Scapa Flow. We saw the sea defences built during the war, these included the decaying hulks of sunken ships. It was great riding despite the northerly winds. We did find that Serena back wheel was a little buckled and rubbing and the back break pads - this what happens when you don't give everything a good inspection before setting off on a trip.
From Kirkwall we caught the ferry over the the island of Sanday and cycled over to Otterwick bay, pitching the tent around 2030. After a quick dinner we collapsed into the tent and were asleep in minutes. It had been a long day! Lucky, Sunday was going to be a more relaxed day. After breakfast we pack up all the kit, before going for a walk along the beach at Otterswick taking a picture of the ruin we camped next to.
We went for a walk around the coast, seeing seals, Arctic Terns, Shags and Oyster Catchers.
Then, after a quick stop in Kettletoft, we headed back to the ferry terminal via Backaskaill Bay. As you can see the weather was wee bit different from the Jubilee weather in London!
Monday was an tourist day, although there was going to be a little bit more cycling involved. We left the campsite in Kirkwall around 8am heading west through the centre of the island. We stopped off at Maes Howe, another chambered cairn. While it was much bigger and grander than the one on Sanday, having to view in a group of other tourist did take away some of the magic. That being said, the scale of Maes Howe is simply amazing when you think it was built 5000 years ago. Up the road from Maes Howe we stopped at the Ring of Brodgar, a standing stone circle. The location of this stone circle does make it a bit more impressive to view than Stonehenge (which is sandwiched between dual carriageways).
From here we thankfully left the main tourist route and headed over the the amazing RSPB reserve at Marwick Head. This was the real reason that I'd taken my SLR - I wanted to see some puffins. Luckily there were a few around, as this is not the best location for the wee birds. There were also lots of guillemots and kittiwakes. We sat around for quite a while watching the comings and goings.
We spent the night camping down at Bay of Skaill. We arrived too late to visit Skara Brae, but there is always next time. After a pasta dinner and a few bottles of Orkney brewery, we crawled into our sleeping bags listening to the Jubilee concert in London on the Beeb.
Our last day was a short ride south to Stromness to catch the ferry back to Scotland. We did visit Yesnaby Head quicky, but with the ferry being at 1130, we unfortunately didn't have much time to play with. We ended up cycling around 180km over the 3.5 days. Not great training for the mmmChallenge in terms of mileage, but we've trialled the new tent and check all our kit is fine. We've identified a couple of items missing from the kit bag that could be useful in July. Top on the list though is to get Serena's bike serviced - I'm not very good a truing wheels!
Our last view of the Island was of the Old Man of Hoy as we sailed south back to Scotland and day-to-day normality. It is great to get away like this. It always feels like a longer trip than it really is.
