A good start

We got off to a flying start when we set off, leaving the house just before 8 am. That’s pretty good for us!

Getting on to the ferry at Scrabster

  A beautiful day as we leave the mainland behind

We’re soon passing the Old Man of Hoy

And we arrived to find a beautiful house, Burnlee

Where we could watch the wildlife from our armchairs

On our first night we watched a short-eared owl hunting over the moorland in front of the house. On the second, we watched a hen harrier. We saw them both regularly during our stay and others on our journeys around the islands. We watched dozens of hare as we ate our meals or lounged in the evening. As we explored the islands we saw seals, fulmar, puffin, gannets, common and black guillemots, shag, eider duck and just briefly, a merlin and an otter.

We did a lot of tourist stuff, a little walking, a lot of eating, a bit of shopping and some geocaching. More of that later.

(There’ll be more. I’m still organising over one thousand photographs, groan!)