18th July.
A nice bright morning for the first day after the Walk. Stayed dry all day as well, a great day for cycling.
Picked up the electric bike at the campsite, complete with gel seat cover and helmet, and went up the road to Finstown that I had walked two days earlier.
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| Stones of Stenness |
Much quicker this time, the hill and headwind no problem with the electric power assistance, very impressed!
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| Maeshowe chambered cairn |
Turned up the road to Stenness heading for Maeshowe chambered cairn. This is at the heart of neolithic Orkney and the amount of monument building is incredible. It also means a lot of visitors, I couldn't get into Maeshowe as the tours were fully booked until 9th August! so had to make do with climbing to the top instead.
The next stop was The Stones Of Stenness and the Barnhouse settlement. The circle was apparently never completed and now there are only a few huge stones left. They are around the same age as Stonehenge but the Barnhouse settlement is earlier.
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| Ness of Brogdar |
There is an archeological dig at the Ness of Brodgar that is uncovering a big neolithic settlement, again giving guided tours.
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| Barnhouse |
A little further on is the huge stone circle at Brogdar, there are thirty six stones left here from the original sixty. Still a lot of people about and you are kept to the perimeter but because of the size of the perfect circle there is a better feeling of place.
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| Ring of Brodgar |
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| Ring of Brodgar |
A few miles on is Skara Brae, probably the most well known prehistoric village. It is very impressive but due to pressure of visitors you are obviously corralled away from the buildings.
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| Skara Brae |
Skail house is also here and was worth the visit.
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| Skail House dining room |
Back to Kirkwall to return the bike after about thirty five miles. It still had some charge left so I went to the Scapa Distillery and had an interesting discussion with one of the tour guides about their different whiskies.
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A good way to round off the journey.
1 comment:
Well, massive congratulations and thank you for sharing your adventure. I do not know what I will do first thing in the morning without your blog to wake up to. Regards, Andy
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