We still have not finished clearing out the spare bedroom for Barbara, Jon and Harry when they come up in 10 days or so for a visit but I thought that I had earned some time off for good behaviour as I am normally better known for untidying than for tidying.
Tuesdays trip to Eynhallow is only a once a year event and I had promised myself that once we were settled in up here I would visit some of the other islands, so it seemed to good a chance to miss.
Unlike Pam, who is always 5 minutes late for everything (A bad idea where ferries are involved), I am probably a bit obsessive about being early so I arrived at Tingwall half an hour before the boat was due to leave for Eynhallow. Rather than hang around the jetty, I drove to the broch of Gurness. Looking across from the broch to Eynhallow I could see why it was host to all the stories of the Finfolk as it kept disappearing and re-appearing in and out of the mist.
As a bonus, on the road back from Gurness an Orkney vole scuttled across the road in front of me, the first that I have seen since moving up here.
At Tingwall I was surprised by the number of people, about 75. We all boarded and as seems normal up her with a healthy disregard for possible dishonesty, nobody checked our tickets so I could have saved myself £20, neither did anybody appear to count us onboard or off but they probably did that while I was not watching.
Underway to Eynhallow and the skipper changed course and slowed down so that we could appoach close to a basking shark in the sound. (I made a mental note to gloat when I got home as Pam has not seen one yet). I have a sneaking suspicion that it was in inflatable of some sort that they tow out from Rousay just to keep the tourist happy but it worked anyway.
Tuesdays trip to Eynhallow is only a once a year event and I had promised myself that once we were settled in up here I would visit some of the other islands, so it seemed to good a chance to miss.
Unlike Pam, who is always 5 minutes late for everything (A bad idea where ferries are involved), I am probably a bit obsessive about being early so I arrived at Tingwall half an hour before the boat was due to leave for Eynhallow. Rather than hang around the jetty, I drove to the broch of Gurness. Looking across from the broch to Eynhallow I could see why it was host to all the stories of the Finfolk as it kept disappearing and re-appearing in and out of the mist.
As a bonus, on the road back from Gurness an Orkney vole scuttled across the road in front of me, the first that I have seen since moving up here.
At Tingwall I was surprised by the number of people, about 75. We all boarded and as seems normal up her with a healthy disregard for possible dishonesty, nobody checked our tickets so I could have saved myself £20, neither did anybody appear to count us onboard or off but they probably did that while I was not watching.
Underway to Eynhallow and the skipper changed course and slowed down so that we could appoach close to a basking shark in the sound. (I made a mental note to gloat when I got home as Pam has not seen one yet). I have a sneaking suspicion that it was in inflatable of some sort that they tow out from Rousay just to keep the tourist happy but it worked anyway.
I have been told to stop now and go to pick th car up from its MoT so fingers crossed.
I will finish later and see if I can figure out how to get photos up on here.
Well it passed the MoT so we can ignore it for another year.
I managed to get some photos loaded, all I need to do now is to figure out how to position them where I want them.
Back to the plot.
Just before we landed on Eynhallow we had to decide if we wanted to see more of the wildlife or of the archeology. This was not what I was expecting, life seems to plague me with difficult decisions. I finally decided that as I could probably learn a bit about birds elsewhere at a later date, I would opt for the archeology group but when we split up about 2/3 of the people opted for the archeology so I changed my mind and went with the smaller wildlife group.
It was a great walk round the island with loads of seals very curious about what all these people were doing on their island, bonxies ganging up on anything that had caught a fish and mobbing it, more graceful and less thuggish artic skuas, puffins, cormorants, shags (which I was informed does not actually lay its eggs in a paper bag), and loads more. The gannets diving for fish were impressive, just like on telly and we still got to see the archeology.
Thanks to the rangers whose knowledge of the flower, birds and archeology made the trip very enjoyable.
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