Orkney Days 4 &5 - Thu/Fri 3/4 Sep 26

First stop this morning, in an effort to beat the crowds, was the Italian Chapel:



An amazing feat by the Italian P.o.W.'s, who also assisted in the building of the Churchill Barriers to halt the German U-boats in WW II.

We then headed to the Hoxa Head Battery for another cliff walk, which turned out to be extremely windy but sunny:






Lots of gun emplacements remain and we briefly sheltered from the wind in one:


At this point, Jeb produced a bottle of Deerness Distillery whisky - it was noon and Jeb's birthday was just 2 days away, so it was time for a traditional toast:


Of course, there was an information board:


The stats were:


Lunch was booked at the lovely Murray Arms Hotel and Seafood Restaurant in St. Margaret's Hope (https://themurrayarmshotel.com/), after which we did a bit of car juggling to enable us to reduce the road content of the afternoon's walk to concentrate on the beach part along the Sands of Wright:


It was so nice that Vicki decided to go for a short paddle:


The usual info board and the stats:



Back to our hotel and out for dinner at the Kirkwall Hotel (2 Orkney ales - the first non-Swanney beers we'd seen outwith the brewery). I met up with one of my CAMRA colleagues to pass on copies of the comemmorative edition of North Sea Ale to celebrate our branch's 50th anniversary.

Friday morning and time to go home. We left our pretty ordinary hotel at 9:30 am:


(Jeb and Vicki were staying on for a few more days and were meeting with friends).

The forecasts had been  for stormy conditions - particularly in the afternoon - but we hoped our 11 am departure would mean we would miss the worst of it - and we did. Here's 4 of us getting ready to leave Stromness:



Another great holiday - with huge thanks to organiser Ken and restaurant booker Steve. No decision has been made on next year's venue but 2 suggestions were made - Islay/Jura and Perthshire.

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