The arrangements for accessing Maeshowe in Orkney had changed since the first time we visited. Now you have to take a bus from the visitor centre a few hundred yards along the road. As a result we heard of the Barnhouse Stone which sits in a field a bit west of Maeshowe and lines up with it and one of the solstices.

I later stopped to photograph it:-

Maeshowe from Barnhouse Stone:-

Maeshowe entrance:-

Ness of Brodgar from Maeshowe. The Ness of Brodgar is the spit of land between the two lochs you can see in the photo. Just below the lowest rightmost hill in the background you can make out the Ring of Brodgar:-

View southwest from Maeshowe:-

View from Maeshowe towards Hoy:-

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I first posted about the Stones of Stenness in 2017.

Here’s a few more photos from this year.

One of the larger stones, with two humans for size comparison. Loch Harray in background:-

Loch Harray in background:

Central stones. Maeshowe is a green bump in the background:-

Last time we visited the Ring of Brodgar it was undergoing some remedial maintenance work.

Not so this June when access was unrestricted:-

From approach path:-

Part of ring:-

Ring of Brodgar, Loch Harray in background:-

The hills of Hoy in background:-

I featured three posts about Skara Brae the https://jackdeighton.co.uk/2017/07/23/skara-brae-orkney-i/ (in 2017.)

This time we were with a friend who hadn’t been there so it was on the list again:-

In June this year were off up to Orkney again. We used the same ferry company, Pentland Ferries, but the boat was a newer one, the MV Alfred. (A couple of weeks after we got home the M S Alfred managed to ground itself on Swona island in the Firth. Lucky we missed that voyage.)

MV Alfred: Ferry from Gills Bay, Caithness, to St Margaret’s Hope in Orkney:-

Lighthouse on the island of Stroma in the Pentland Firth:-

Views at St Margaret’s Hope:-

I’ve been away for a holiday – on Orkney again – but the travelling had me knackered and I haven’t felt like blogging since I got back, though the posts I’d scheduled for the time I would be away seem to have listed okay.

In the interim Paula Rego, the Portugusee artist whom I mentioned here and who lived in England for a long time, has died.

Maria Paula Figueiroa Rego: 26/1/1935 – 8/6/2022. So it goes.

Also gone is Northern Ireland’s most successful football manager, Billy Bingham who took his country to the World Cup Finals not just once, but twice, in 1982 and 1986 and two British Home Championship wins in 1980 and 1984, the last edition of that tournament so that they still hold the title of British Champions. (Northern Ireland had only ever won the tournament outright once before.)

William Laurence (Billy) Bingham: 5/81931 – 9/6/2022. So it goes.

Not to mention longtime campaigner for nuclear disarmament, Bruce Kent.

Bruce Kent: 22/6/1929 – 8/6/2022. So it goes.

Stone circles aren’t something I associated with Dumfries and Galloway. I think of them more as an up north, Western Isles and Orkney sort of thing.

But here this one was on the road between Kirkcowan and Wigtown. Torrhouse stone Circle is a Bronze Age monument.

Here are three of the stones and a local farm animal, not to mention a tree shaped like a lollipop:-

It’s not just Orkney where you can find the remains of brochs.

This one, Càrn Liath Broch, lies west of the A 9 just north of Golspie, Sutherland, Scotland. It’s very well preserved.

Park at the lay-by on the other die of the road – take care crossing, it’s fairly busy – and it’s a short walk to the broch

From the A 9, Moray Firth in background:-

From north:-

From south:-

Broch interior:-

An external structure:-

Information board:-

On the way down from Orkney and Thurso we stopped at Dunbeath, Caithness. This was the birthplace of Scottish writer Neil M Gunn.

This stone was laid in his memory. “To commemorate Neil M Gunn, author of world renown, born into this community 8^th November 1891.”

This statue, erected 100 years after Gunn’s birth, is in honour of the character Kenn from his novel Highland River:-

This is the river running through the village, the Dunbeath Water, possibly that same Highland river:-

This information board was on a wall nearby. As well as mentioning Gunn it notes other local attractions:-

Not quite the farthest northeast point of the British mainland (see previous post) John O’Groats is, though, the furthest northeast settlement in Scotland.

There’s almost nothing there though, which does mean it’s thankfully mostly unspoiled.

Well, a small harbour, from which there are boat trips (foot passengers only) to the island of Stroma, and I think Orkney:-

A hotel:-

The signpost – very difficult to photograph without a body in the way – though they don’t all wear silly hats:-

This view inland also shows in the background the shop at the site:-

There’s also a sculpture with three intersecting curved metal strips to represent the local nomadic boulders the information board shown below explains. There were children playing on it though so I didn’t photograph the sculpture itself:-