Orkney day 1 (19/7)

Today we left Tulloch Castle (extra picture) and came up to the Orkney Islands. It's amazing how old and monochrome the architecture is, but how richly green the grassy treeless landscape is! The first place we visited was the Kitchener Memorial. I managed to dig out a photo of me on the path from 2007, and we took another as a comparison. After this it was The Brough of Birsay which is probably the most spectacular piece of natural scenery we've seen on the trip. Photos just don't do this island justice. It's like an enormous, flat disk shape on a tilt. Access is on foot via a causeway which gets devoured by ferocious seas at high tide, so you need to avoid getting trapped. Furthermore, on the island itself is a thousand year old ruin of a Viking village and monastery that you can freely walk through. Similarly, after dinner, at about 10pm (because you have full light until at least 11), Bec and I went out to see the two sets of nearby standing stones, apparently dating from 3000 to 5000 BC. It's amazing how informal it all is. You can just pull over in the car, walk around and touch them. There is a gate to open, but that's just to keep the sheep in. It seems a bit busier than last time we came, but it still isn't busy enough to have any of the usual rules and restrictions we're so used to seeing in normal life.