Day 26: Inverness - Monday, 23 September

Weather: 11º - 12º - Cloudy 

Accommodation: Fairfield Townhouse Guesthouse 

We sadly left Orkney where we have had a wonderful time exploring its history. We were pleased to have stayed in Kirkwall as our base for the five days as it was close to many of the major attractions. From today we are free-ranging and have no firm plans. Up until now all our accommodation on the islands and the ferry journeys were booked three months ago from Australia.

The ferry left from the beautiful village of St Margaret’s Hope on the island of South Ronaldsay at 11.30am. We visited this picturesque village a couple of days ago and had a delicious seafood lunch. We gave ourselves some time to walk around the village again and I was keen to take some more photos. There were photos to be taken from every nook and cranny. Most Orcadians think St Margaret’s Hope is Orkney’s prettiest village. We agree!

The Pentland ferry arrived in the bay, turned and reversed into the small ferry terminal. 

It was a tight squeeze driving onto the ferry with the cars sandwiched in. All the passengers had to get out of their car and take their belongings so the cars could be parked as close as possible. Each of the drivers had to park under the instruction of the ferry crew and my car was beeping constantly telling me I was too close to the ferry wall but I had to trust the crew and it worked out well. I had to quickly get out and take my belongings to allow the car beside me to park. 

There was a funny incident as the American driver in front of me got out of the car when we drove on and expected a valet service! I wish they did provide him with this service as he was a hopeless driver. 

The 1.15 hour ferry journey was smooth and we had lovely views of the Orkney islands as we sailed passed them. We decided to have lunch on board to save travelling time when we arrived back on the mainland at Gills Bay. 

Our first stop was John O’Groats ten minutes away. Fifteen years ago Henk and I had taken four months of walking from Land’s End to reach it and when we were getting close to John O’Groats people would say to us that “it’s a dump” and they weren’t too far wrong. However, today Henk and I couldn’t get over the difference. The hotel which was previously in a great state of disrepair with scaffolding is now an upmarket accommodation centre; there are a number of cafes, a whiskey centre, many gift shops and a great deal of parking space. There were a lot of visitors to the site. We didn’t recognise it. 

We were keen to see the start and finish line for the LEJOGGERs and JOGGLERS but this seems to have disappeared in the makeover. Now there is a smart end to end sign where we had our photo taken. We also had our photo taken at the traditional sign. 

Even the harbour was looking particularly fine. 

We never envisaged seeing the area again so we spent the time reminiscing as took the backroads and retraced our route from John O’Groats to Inverness. As we went along we kept saying how we couldn’t believe how far we had walked. We called into the Grey Cairns of Camster and Henk took a photo of me coming out of the cairn just as he done all those years ago. I was still able to bend down and crawl along the low entrance.

We decided to aim for Inverness and as I drove Henk was able to tell me where we had walked with the help of Google Maps. It brought back so many memories.

We arrived at our accommodation in the centre of Inverness at 5.30pm. It had been a long day. Pearl, our B&B host, suggested that The Waterfront would be a good place to have dinner. We were hungry after not eating since the early lunch on the ferry. We quickly unpacked the car and headed to the restaurant. We had a tasty meal but something went wrong with our order and it wasn’t delivered for 1.5 hours. (There’s a pattern happening here!). So, two free drinks later we enjoyed our meal in the popular venue. By this stage a band had started playing. 

It was an early night for us again after a long day. Tomorrow we are planning to stay in Anstruther.