We decided to go and visit the Old Man of Hoy but he was off to pick up a Tesco delivery :D

The Old Man is a sandstone sea stack, just off the east coast of the island of Hoy. It looked like the weather would be okay so we booked a ferry from the mainland of Orkney to Hoy. It’s only a short crossing but the only place available was at 8am so we got up a lot earlier than our usual. When we got there the weather had changed a bit. It was blowing a hoolie (very windy for those of you needing a translation) and starting to rain.

It is a 3 mile walk from the car park to the stack over some pretty rough ground but we got there eventually and it was worth the effort. We got back to the car, wet and tired. Pat ended up wrapped in my sleeping bag to try and get warm!

Earlier this month I went across to the Isle of Lewis off the west coast of Scotland. It’s one of the Outer Hebridean islands. It’s an absolutely superb place. You have to get the ferry over either from Ullapool on the west coast of the mainland or, as we did, from Uig on the Isle of Skye. The ferry was cancelled on the original day because of high winds but ran the following day although it didn’t feel like it was less windy to us! We stayed in a lovely little cottage at Siabost. There were beautiful beaches within a few minutes although with the strength of the wind it was sometimes difficult to stand up! It was close to the standing stones at Calanais which are more than 5000 years old. Older than Stonehenge and around the same time as the Egyptian pyramids.

I also saw the Aurora Borealis, the Northern Lights, for the first time. They are absolutely jaw-dropping! Then the beach at Luskentyre on Harris, the Black House at Arnol, the lighthouse at Point of Ness and many other interesting places.

The ferry home was also cancelled because one of the engines failed and the ferry was stuck in Lochmaddy on the island of North Uist. That’s somewhere else that I really want to go to. We got home the following day after taking the other ferry to Ullapool and driving about 120 miles down the coast.