Some images from the Orkney Islands

After travelling down from the Shetlands to Orkney, we wondered if the weather would improve a little. Well it did but still remained overcast and showerey. Actually this gave the islands and mountains quite a surreal appearance and seemed to suit the surroundings.
Orkney is very different to Shetland. There are trees, lush farm land, distinct mountains and valleys and a general feeling of a more affluent lifestyle. It is a very pleasant area to spend time on bicycles.
Our trip included a really good exploration of mainland Orkney, and we travelled by ferry over to the island of Hoy.
A stunning ride through a narrow road with high sided hills that had not been grazed for 40 years. Our camp was at the Bay of Rackwick near a bothy. We did a 3 hour walk over the sea cliffs to have a look at the Old Man of Hoy, a remarkable sea stack of some 137mtrs. It was first climbed in 1966 by Chris Bonnington and co in a televised broadcast (Chas remembers it well!!)
Other places of interest included the Scapa Flow museum where they had brilliantly displayed artifacts from WW1 and WW2. Tomorrow we plan to ferry over to John O Groats and the mainland.        

Main street Kirkwell

Lovely old house in Kirkwell

Impressive St Magnus Cathedral. Kirkwell

Old home in Finstown

Lush countryside

Standing Stones of Stenness (enlarge to read)

A standing stone

Main street Stromness

Looking towards the island of Hoy

Stromness water front

Bothy at Rackwick Bay, Hoy

Sea cliffs, Hoy

The Old Man of Hoy

Two old men.............

Betty Corigals grave...the lonliest grave in Britain, a great story here...

Rural scene

Evie camp site...very nice

Superb condition on these Scottish laddies.....!

A week in the Shetlands

Arriving early off the ferry we located the camp site and replenished our food stocks at the super market and had a look around Lerwick including a walk over the local hill, giving a good panoramic view of the town. The weather turned nasty about lunchtime and continued to rain all the next day. The forecast for the next 3-4 days was for much of the same so we decide to rent a van for a few days and head off north. This proved to be a good option as we saw most of the islands, far more than we would have on the bikes. The Shetlands are a treeless landscape, with peat moors and heather coated hillsides. It is barren and windswept with dramatic coastlines. However the people are amazingly open and friendly, despite the seemingly remote lifestyle they lead. When we asked a lady we meet at the northernmost village if she felt isolated, her reply was, "It's where I am." This summed up the Shetlands for us. We will let the photos from the many islands we visited  tell the rest of the story.

Lerwick main street

Lerwick

Narrow streets

Ancient Broch

Lerwick from the hill

Lerwick houses

Lerwick broch

Broch

Scalloway castle

Crypt at Tingwall church- ancient headstones

Chas couldn't resist taking the rental van 4WDriving

Ancient standing stone

View of eastern coast of main island

A viking evening we attended with local music and food at Uyeasound... great night including the whiskey!!!

Viking McKenzie

Muness castle built in 1598

Northern most house in UK

Great Skua and chick at Hermaness Nature reserve

Interpretation panel at nature reserve

Rugged northern coastline

Mucle Flugga lighthouse ( as seen in the TV doco 'Islands of Britain'.)

This picture sums up the isolation of the Shetlands whilst retaining services to the people.

Watch out for the wild Shetland ponies!!!

Yeah right... !

Coastal landscapes by the miles

And more!!!

A touch of history everywhere, an old fishermans house

.... and all around the heather!

A week in and around Bergen, Norway...and over to the Shetlands.

What a delightful town Bergen is. About 300,000 people live here, scattered amongst the hill and island suburbs. A tourist mecca for visiting cruise ships in the short summer season. As we had arrived a month earlier than planned we changed our flight arrangements to the Shetlands, serviced the bikes and did some touristy trips.
The highlight was a full on day trip called "Norway in a nut Shell". This included a ride on the highest railway in Northern Europe called the "Bergen Railway", transferring to the world famous Flam mountain railway, a boat trip down a fiord and a hairy ride down a mountain road in a bus.
Our accomodation for the week was with Tom and whilst this was a fair distance out of town, the fantastic Bybann light rail operated every 10 minutes and took us right into the centre of town.
It is incredible to think that the 13th July marked the half way point in time of our journey!!
Our changed travel plans involved a flight to Aberdeen and a 14 hour overnight ferry ride back up to Lerwick in the Shetlands. All went very smoothly, including a very quick 30 minute reassemble of the bikes at the ferry terminal. We arrived a little jaded at 7.30am to a sunny Shetland day anticipating exploring more of the islands over the coming week.

Fish market in Bergen

Bergen waterfront Bryggen- old town

Bryggen narrow streets

Bryggen

City park

Bob the American juggler- street theatre

View of downtown Bergen from top of vernicular railway

Watch out for the Trolls in the woods...!!

Bergen's vernicular railway

On one of the many fiords

Mountain river

Up on the snow line above Flam

looking back up to the top of the Flam railway, note the winding road.

Flam rail carriage ( enlarge to read info on side of carriage)

At Flam station

Old diagram of the altitude on Flam railway

Flam

Fiord out of Flam

Fiord out of Flam

Fiord out of Flam

Descending winding road

...and again

...and again, still a way to the valley floor