All photos for this trip can be found in our
2019 Ireland/Scotland Photo Album
Look for the "Week 5" tag for photos added this week.
2019 Ireland/Scotland Photo Album
Look for the "Week 5" tag for photos added this week.
Our general travel route (planned) for this week (although, on the Orkney's we used Stromness as our base and drove all over the man island)...
Monday started with an excellent breakfast at the Crask Inn where we chatted at length with another couple. They are long time friends of the owners, Douglas and Denise, but this was the first time they had been able to visit them at the inn since they took over two years ago. Douglas gave us some hints on our direction north to Scrabster so we decided to follow a slightly different route than first planned. Our revised route for this part...
... a single track road through beautiful wide open countryside...
Along the way we saw a herd of deer, two hawks and a grouse, along with some large forest lots that are being cleared. Douglas had told us that many of the forest lots are being logged with the long term plan to return the land to peat bogs because the peat is a significantly better carbon sink than the forests. About half way, we stopped in at the Garvault Hotel, holder of the "Mainland Britain's most Remote Hotel" title...
... and they also serve up a nice peppermint tea with cake...
We arrived in Scrabster with about 4 hours to go before our ferry at 7:00PM so drove farther east to the Castle of Mey, purchased by the Queen Mother in the early 1950's, refurbished to become her summer castle which she visited regularly, in the summer, until her death in 2002. The new visitors centre was opened in 2007. Pretty good soup and cake in their cafe. Afterwards we drove up to Dunnet Head lighthouse, the most northerly point of the mainland UK...
It began to rain as we left the lighthouse so we decided to just head to the ferry terminal and wait it out. We arrived at the Scrabster terminal about an hour and a half before checkin opened so we were the first in line. Time to veg out and wait and soon enough we were aboard and on our way to the Orkneys. The MV Hamnavoe is a pretty posh ferry. We started with a dinner of lasagna for Brian and salmon for Kris. BC Ferries could take a lesson on dinner meals from these folks! Excellent food. The ferry trip started off a bit rocking and rolling but once we cleared the Dunnet Head the waters calmed considerably. We arrived in Stromness around the scheduled time and drove the short distance to the Burnside B&B where Joy was waiting for us with a yard light on to help us find the place in the dark.
Tuesday started with an excellent breakfast of scrambled egg and smoked salmon at the B&B. We were the only ones there Monday night so no other guests to chat with. After, we drive into Stormness, stopped for a couple of lattes at Julia's Cafe then wandered along the main commercial street in Stromness where Kris picked up a couple of skeins of wool at Quernstone Knitwear. The wool is from North Ronaldsay sheep, a breed that is confined to the shoreline of the remote island and live on seaweed. Near the end of the main commercial street is the small Stromness Museum. They have a permanent exhibit showing the important connections of Orkney to the early days of the Canadian Hudsons Bay Company (many men from Orkney did major exploration work for the HBC). The main current special exhibit showcased the story of the scuttling of the German naval fleet in Scapa Flow in 1919, where during the ceasefire negotiations to end the WW I, an apparent miscommunication caused the German commander to issue the order to scuttle the fleet rather than hand it over to the British Royal Fleet. In the space of one afternoon over 50 warships were sunk. The exhibit also showcases the salvage work undertaken over the next couple of decades to raise the ships and haul them off for scrap. Today, seven ships remain on the seabed and are a popular place for divers.
Early afternoon we drove to Kirkwall where we stopped in at Twenty One for a nice lunch of broccoli and blue cheese soup for Kris and a toasted bagel with avocado and tomato for Brian. We wandered around the downtown pedestrian area of Kirkwall for a bit, going into the St Magnus Cathedral ...
...which was built in the 1100's. By this time it was late afternoon so headed back to Stromness where we went to The Ferry Inn for a couple of rather bland dinners. The scallop plate (as a main entree; as opposed to starter) consisted of 8 scallops and absolutely nothing else. The seafood curry had virtually no curry taste, just some seafood in a bowl of tomato sauce.
Wednesday, at breakfast we chatted with other guests who had arrived late Tuesday. A fellow from Oxfordshire who came to Orkney for some sightseeing and fishing and a German couple who are on a bit of a grand adventure touring around Scotland. As usual, it was fun exchanging stories about where we all have been and where we are all off to in the next stages of our trips. Mid morning we drove to the far southeast corner of Orkney mainland, following the Orkney "Creative Trail" where they have signposts indicating a participating craft studio/store ...
... stopping in at a few of the designated craft studios etc. We also stopped in Robertson's Coffee Shop...
... in St Margaret's Hope for a couple of lattes, a great piece of lemon poppy seed cake and a nice chat with a woman, we met there, who is a knitwear designer and was wearing a sweater that Kris talked with her about. After the break, we continued on the "Creative Trail" ending at The Hoxa Tapestry Gallery...
... a tapestry workshop studio run by a woman who is recognized as one of the premier tapestry weavers in the UK. No pics allowed but, man, her tapestries are something to behold. Beautiful.
On the way back home, about mid afternoon, we stopped at the Highland Park whiskey distillery in Kirkwall where we lucked into getting a couple of spots for the 3:00PM tour. When we went in they told us that the remaining tours for Wednesday afternoon were all sold out. We booked a tour for Thursday and, after looking around their visitor centre, started to leave. As we walked out the door, I, Brian, asked Kris what time it was... about 15 minutes to three. I said, let's just go back in and ask what the chances of a getting in if someone cancels at the last minute. As I walked up to the desk the receptionist hung up the phone and I asked her about our chances. She laughed and said that she just got off the phone with a party of seven who cancelled their 3:00 PM tour because one of their party had just broken his leg. Unfortunate for them, but we were in :-) :-) The tour was really good and a couple of wee drams of their single malt products was pretty good too. A bunch of pics, in our photo album, taken during the distillery tour. An interesting tidbit... they have over 40,000 barrels of whiskey aging in their storehouse. For dinner, back in Stromness, we tried our luck at the Stromness Hotel this time. Fortunately we had made reservations earlier in the day as they were quite busy when we arrived. A much better dinner than last night... a beef and ale pie with veggies for Brian and a grilled haddock with salad and potatoes for Kris.
Thursday, the usual scrambled eggs and smoked salmon breakfast and another nice round of chatting with the same other guests as Wednesday morning. Today was check out day for all of us so we said our good byes. After we got checked out we drove down the hill into Stromness for a couple of lattes at Julia's Cafe then Kris headed back to the yarn store to pick up an extra skein of the wool she had bought on Tuesday (just in case).
Afterwards we drove around the northwest part of the island, stopping at a few more of the "Creative Trail" shops in Dounby before driving over to the massive Standing Stones of Stenness...
...These are so neat and interesting we don't think you could get tired of seeing them. Leaving there we stopped at the nearby Ring of Brodgar where we joined a group of people for a free ranger talk. Now, that was interesting! The ranger explained what had been found on and around the site but perhaps more significantly, what not had been found. Inside the ring, using traditional archaeology dig techniques and the most modern ground scanning technology, she said they expected to find evidence of extensive human activity but found "absolutely nothing!" Whatever the site was for, the people left nothing there. Even the debris, from digging the deep ditch in extremely rocky ground around the outside of the ring, has never been found anywhere nearby!
For dinner, Thursday, we went a bit further down the Stromness commercial street to the Royal Hotel where we had the best meal of our three pub meals in Stromness. A large bowl of Cullen Skink for Brian and a salad with smoked salmon for Kris. Both were very good. After dinner we still had a couple of hours before we could check in for the overnight stay on the ferry for the trip back to the Scottish mainland early Friday morning. It's pretty cool as you can book a cabin on the ferry and stay on board so you don't have to get up super early and drive to the ferry to depart at 6:30 AM. To kill a bit of time we went into the Ferry Inn, across from the ferry terminal, for a nightcap. A bit after 9:30 PM, we checked in, got access to our cabin on board the ferry then went up to the Magnus Lounge for one last nightcap.
Friday morning, we awoke a bit before the ferry departed at 6:30 AM, had a surprisingly nice shower in the wee shower stall. Our cabin package included two breakfast vouchers. When we went to the restaurant we were told we could take as much as we wanted. When we got to the cashier and handed him the vouchers, he printed off a couple of new ones and said "when you finish that one you can come back again as many times as you want; it is an eat all you want breakfast"! Well, that was nice but come on, how many eggs, sausages and bacon can one old geezer eat???
It was a brilliant clear morning with a great sunrise as we left behind the beautiful view over Stromness harbour...
.... about half way across the channel we passed close by the "Old Man of Hoy"...
... (this pic is a bit dark so the sea stack of red sandstone doesn't show very well; click on the link above the pic to see a better pic on the wikipedia entry).
We had planned to only drive about an hour and a half to the town of Tain and stay there for the night but after having missed our chance to go through Lochcarron on our way off the Isle of Skye (due to the road closure), and since we arrived back on the mainland at only 8:00 AM, we decided to make a long day of it and drive south to Lochcarron. This is a place we wanted to see as this is where Kris' 4th Great Grandfather lived when at the age of 80 in 1820 he packed up his entire extended family and took them to Cape Breton. Lochcarron is a sweet little village in a beautiful valley...
... and we wondered what it must have been like back in 1820, during the brutal Highland Clearances, to realize you could have a better future elsewhere. We had a nice lunch of smoked salmon baguette for Kris and a brie and cranberry panini for Brian. We drove around the wee village, stopped at a cemetery to see if we could find any evidence of family graves (a couple of right names but not sure if related), then drove back north to the Inchbae Lodge where we had stayed last week. This time we had a nice room on the top floor with a great view over the yard and the small river out back ...
... and for dinner; lamb shank for Brian and a haggis stuffed portobello mushroom with side salad for Kris. YUMMM!
Saturday after breakfast in the lodge's conservatory (very nice), we packed up and headed south towards Dundee. Along the way we stopped in Carrbridge, the home of the Golden Spurtle (world porridge championships), for a coffee and a look at the famous Carr-Bridge, the oldest stone bridge in Scotland...
... then, later in the afternoon, in the beautiful village of Dunkeld, a popular weekend getaway place for people who live in Perth. What a little gem of a place! While there a shopkeeper told us about the importance of Dunkeld in the late 18th early 19th century as a place that numerous "drove roads" passed through. Very interesting!
Late afternoon we arrived in Dundee and got checked into the Shaftesbury Lodge then drove into the centre of the city. Looks to be a fairly vibrant place with a wide long pedestrian corridor connecting two shopping malls. We found a Marks & Spencer to look around in for a bit; no purchase, but some ideas to check out again when we get to Edinburgh. For dinner we parked the car back at the lodge and walked down Perth Street passed numerous pubs, that did not offer food service, eventually settling on Dil'se, a Bangladeshi Indian restaurant where we had some excellent lamb shish-kebab, lamb gosht and chicken biriani. On the way back to the lodge we stopped in at one of the pubs, we had passed by earlier, for a nightcap.
Sunday morning, after a very good breakfast at the lodge, we drove four miles east of town to the charming seaside village of Broughty Ferry where there was a Cafe Nero, for a couple of excellent lattes while we perused the large Sunday Times newspaper. Lots of cute stores etc in the village but, being Sunday, pretty well everything was closed. After coffee, we drove back into Dundee to the new V&A (Victoria & Albert) museum that opened about a year ago...
... it is a beautiful modern building perched on the edge of the banks of the River Tay. There were a few small exhibits along with the main large one in the Scottish Design Galleries showcasing Scottish innovation and design stories that have had international impact over the years. Very interesting.
After picking up a few souvenirs in the gift shop, we decided to drive the short distance south to St Andrew's to see if we could get in a round on the Himalayas Putting course before the forecasted rain set in. There are two very hilly putting courses; a 9 hole and an 18 hole. The 18 hole course was packed with people and nobody was on the 9 hole so we opted for the 9 hole and a good thing too as the rain started just as we were finishing up the 9th. Here's a pic of Kris after she scored a hole-in-one on the second hole....
....for lunch we tried the clubhouse where we had a really good lunch a couple of years ago. So-so at best this time. Oh well, like golf itself, win some - lose some :-(
Back in Dundee, at the lodge, we repacked our luggage getting ready to hand in the car the next day in Aberdeen. After a rest we drove down Perth Street to find some dinner. A fellow outside a pub recommended a place just down the street. TailEnd did not disappoint with excellent haddock with chips and garden peas. Nice way to end the week!
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