Scara Brae

I really like Orkney as the skies are big and the scenery gentle. It is alos a great place for birds, so the extras are an immature oystercatcher at Birsay and a family of Shelduck at Marwick. The weather was good so we looked at the seabird colony at Marwick Head and then decided to go to Scara Brae after lunch. It is part of the Orkney World Heritage site so gets heaps of visitors and when we arrived there were about 10 coaches in the car park. We thought it would be hellish, but after making our way through the introduction to the site, and examining a replica of one of the houses we went outside and found everyone had gone. We had a good chat with the custodian and saw no one. There are now more than 90000 visits each year and I reckon the average time spent must be 15 – 20 minutes, so have no constraints makes a huge difference. The blip is of one of the houses and the view of the Bay of Skaill. When we first visited in 1984 there were so few people coming you could go in the houses, but these days everyone sticks to the paving and the site is saved from erosion.