Sunday morning

The morning dawned clear and bright so we dug out the walking boots, packed a lunch and headed off for a walk out to the Brough of Deerness.

The walk takes you past the Gloup and out along the cliff tops through some fantastic maritime heath landscape. Once you get out the brough you find a promintory which can be cut off at high tides. Today however it was calm and dry so we took the steep path down the cliff and up the other side (top right hand of the pic).

On top there are the remains of an old chapel, though to be very early christian and probably predating the conversion of most of the viking lands. There are also the humps and bumps of a settlement of around 30 houses probably a viking stronghold. Not hard to see why you would build a defensive settlement up here but it must have been pretty wild in winter.

Once we'd visited the brough we climbed down to the shore, where Campbell went for a paddle of course. Then the boys spent a contented half hour throwing stones from the cliff into the sea.

We certainly had the best of the day as no sooner had we got home than the weather truned very wet and windy. Glad we went out when we did.