Bagging our 50th Island

As a celebration of my 70th Birthday later this month and my friend John Irving's in August we needed to bag a couple of more remote Scottish inhabited islands to reach our 50th island visited. We booked a week in Orkney and were fortunate to have spectacular weather all week. The first island we visited was North Ronaldsay and this involved an early 18 minutes flight on Tuesday morning. This is our 8 seater Islander aircraft that is the mainstay of the Orkney island services. 

The famous North Ronaldsay sheep that graze on the seaweed and this gives them a particular taste that is famous throughout the gastronomic world.

The island has a golf course but I doubt if its played on very often

The beach where the sheep graze but as soon as they saw us they were off liker a shot so no photos of them eating seaweed. 

The only time they eat grass is when the lambs are born so they are taken to grassy areas for a few weeks. 

Our second Island was Rousay and this involved a short ferry crossing. Rousay is famous for its very old buildings and tombs and this is an old church that is now covered in this lichen.

Myself and John next to Peerie Water on Rousay. we spent about 4 hours on the island and walked a total of 6 miles on a coastal walk and a hill walk.

Our ferry to Rousay which you had to reverse onto

This is the famous lighthouse on North Ronaldsay which is the tallest land-based lighthouse in the UK and it also has a foghorn.

Most of the houses on North Ronaldsay are single story and they have these heavy stone roofs to protect them from the continual wind. 

This is the famous Midhowe Chambered Cairn which has had extensive work done to preserve it including putting a building over it. 

This is the Midhowe Broch. In the mile long Heritage walk along the shore of Eynhallow sound there are so many archaeological sites that it has been named the Egypt of the north. 

Another view of the ancient church