A very quick turnaround and we were at Gatwick Airport on Wednesday 15 April to fly to Inverness to meet up with Harry & Meg for our next adventure to the Orkney Islands and the West Coast of Scotland. We drove to Thurso where we stayed at the Royal Hotel before catching the car ferry to Stomness. Stromness is a small town stretching along the edge of the island with stone paved streets, tiny closes (one called Khyber Pass which runs up the hill)and an excellent art gallery, the Piers Arts Centre, which won an architectural award when finished. We went on to our self-catering apartment for 4 nights which was a very comfortable 2 bedroom cottage with a view directly over the Wide Firth; when the tide was in it was almost lapping at the base of our cottage!! The island are fairly flat there is little if any tree cover and the land is very fertile and intensively used for agriculture, sheep and some cattle. The towns are small with stone buildings with slate roofs, everything is heritage and there is very little advertising signage. A garage or shop may have no sign as everyone knows where the shop is! They don't seem very entrepreneurial, as lunch restaurants run out of food at 1.00pm, not even a can of soup; restaurants last orders 8.00pm; some hotels not open till 7.00pm.

A small car ferry goes over to the island of Hoy every two or three hours so we left the car as we were only going for a short walk and to the museum. The museum tells the story of the scuttling of the WW1 German fleet which was taken to Scapa Flow at the end of the war after the cease fire and before the Armistice agreement. The whole fleet was scuttled by order of the German Admiral before the agreement was signed as he was concerned that the fleet would be used by another power. In hindsight it was better it was sunk rather than being shared by the conquering powers. Some of the fleet was actually saved by the British and many ships salvaged as scrap until 1955, however seven major ships are still on the bottom although broken up by salvagers. In WW2 Scapa Flow was also the major refuge for the British Fleet. The many islands had been originally separated by between 50 and 200 meters and during WW2 the Churchill Barriers were constructed to link them and stop the U-boats sneaking in. The museum is small, simple but well organized and there is a great audio visual shown on the inside of the wall of one of the original oil tanks.

Day 2 was a Heritage and Architecture day lead by Harry Mantell FRAC etc Heritage Architect so started at the Kirkwell produce market special day - free samples of oatcakes, shortbread, Orkney Icecream, smoked salmon, kippers, smoked herring and best of all full crab claws (later selling at 1 quid each)! We walked to the Cathedral, St Magnus Cathedral, founded in 1137 and is a mixture of 3 different styles- Romanesque, Transitional & Gothic - and is built of red sandstone with bands of yellow sandstone. Across the street is the Earl's Palace, built by Earl Patrick Stewart and was the finest example of French Renaissance in Scotland but is now a ruin. Tankerness House, originally built for the clergy around 1540 is now the local museum which is extremely good.

Day 3 we visited Neolithic sites of which there are hundreds. In that time the land was about 3 degrees warmer and there were some trees and abundant fish and game an ideal place to live amongst the fairly flat islands. We visited Scara Brae, 5000 year old Neolithic village in an amazingly good state of preservation - found after the erosion of the coastline. Some of the many mounds have been excavated and show that man lived in small family or clan groups in stone structures with an insulated timber, skins and grass insulated roof, each had a central fire for warmth, smoking and cooking. There are many religious or meeting sites with standing stones, Ring of Brogdar and Stenness stones, similar to Stone Henge. One mound , Maeshowe,has been built like a small pyramid; some of the internal slabs are up to 5 X 5 metres and 1/3 m thick. The sun shines through the 20 metre entry tunnel on the winter solstice all very clever for people 4000 - 5000 years ago! You have to book in September for a chance to see the sun shining in December!

We left on the same car ferry and started our trip along the north coast and down the west coast. Much more rugged, higher mountains and with lochs at all levels, (lakes, long inlets, fiords, harbours etc can be considered as lochs). It's a rough rainy area and these locks could be at the top of mountains or just behind a harbor; very fertile land low down, peaty bogs at the mid levels and mountains with gravel tops.After a night at Lochinver we travelled on a very narrow road to where we had a good walk up the valley to thefalls. Near the start of the walk is a book shop, Achins, in the forest which has been there for years and seems to survive. Why it's there one would wonder! We stayed at a small coastal town Ullapool; lovely town of two storey cottages and a large wharf servicing the fishing industry. A Norwegian factory ship was moored in the bay accompanied by a freighter and a larger deepsea trawler, possibly others out to sea. The trawler came to the dock and hoisted thousands of large cardboard cartons for the fish that were being processed on the mother ship.

Today gardens and scenery - Inverewe Gardens, a huge garden on the edge of Loch Ewe which was built by a Scotsman, Osgood Mackenzie in the mid 1800's. Because of the Gulf Stream the area is quite a lot warmer than you would expect from the latitude - higher than Moscow and lower than NZ - so many plants are grown that you wouldn't expect - tropical plants. Eucalyptus, tree ferns from Tasmania, an amazing variety of rhododendrons all protected by a large number of pines, including Douglas Fir, silver fir and some Californian Redwoods. Vegetables and annuals are grown on south facing sloping gardens sheltered by walls and hedges. It was an absolute delight and a garden I(Di) had wanted to see for many years.

We stopped at Beinn Eighe National Nature Reserve, the oldest reserve in Britain, and walked through remnants of the Caledonian pine forest which stand along Loch Maree.

Our last night was at a small B&B, Cromoscaig, near Kinlochewe where we had a very pleasant night with the owners, Liz & Tom Forrest, who cooked our evening meal. A really good last night after a super trip.