Long Walks in Nature are the Best!

 06-09-2022

Last night we filled out our breakfast-request cards and this morning we come downstairs at nine to find our table beautifully set and breakfast arrives shortly!  Everything is wonderful but the mushrooms are a particular delight!  When I ask Nickie his secret he laughs and says just fry them in lots of butter! There must be more to the magic!

Vegan bacon was an option and it's really good!

Connie is closely inspecting the wine inventory in the piano/wine bar.

As we're enjoying breakfast, Nickie's wife sneaks in to snag a bit of breakfast for herself and she tells us the history of this beautiful house.  It used to be THE house on the street; but over time is was ignored and became dilapidated. She suggested buying it and before she knew it, Nickie was in the backyard making a deal!  She says that she has the ideas and Nickie does all the work!  She loves that her three kids, aged 13, 11, and 8, can walk to school in safety.

Our first stop today is the Churchill Barriers and the Italian Cathedral.  Italian prisoners of war during World War II built the Churchill Barriers, rally huge cement blocks piled haphazardly, to stop the German U-Boars from destroying the British warship further inland.  They also created a "cathedral" from a quonset hut and a lot of ingenuity.  The man in charge poles his fellow prisoners to see what skills they had.  When you look at the pictures, remember that those effects are all just paint!  Visitors are requested not to touch the walls and it is easy to see how tempting this would be!  A lady tells Connie that some of the prisoners married girls from the island.  When Connie asks if she is a docent, she replies, "No, just a know-it-all!

Now the Churchill Barriers are also bridges.

From the front is looks just like any small chapel.

It's all just paint!!

But from the side you can see the quonset hut!

Next we head to the Mull Head Local Nature Reserve. There are several different walks offered along the edge of the cliffs.  We split into two groups and agree to meet back at the car by 1:45 at the latest.  Ginger and I head off the the first stop is The Gloup, a collapsed sea cave.  There is a gentleman there who is bird watching and he points out to us the red-legged Black Galinouls, which he is surprised to see here.  (Who knew?) 

We were on the look out for the varmints and the dogs;  but no luck!

Nature photographer at work!

We did see one of the traps!

We would have walked down to the water!

Alas, no seals to be seen.

We move on to be awed and amazed by the gorgeous scenery and the tilted sedimentary rocks with crashing waves.  Further along the rocks are horizontal and look like the pancake rocks ion New Zealand.

We also see lots of birds nesting in the cliffs and find something new to admire at every turn in the path.

We're so pleased to find that we have completed the walk in less than our allotted time and take a swing by the visitors' center to be sure we haven't missed anything.  The geology display is less than helpful and doesn't even say the age of the rocks or their make-up.  But everything else about this beautiful, windy walk has been superb. Connie and Marilyn got back to the car just a few minutes before us.  We're relieved that they hadn't been kept waiting very long.

Just as we're leaving we find our very own "airy coo"!  And he's posing for us!

Evil cruise ship!

We're feeling hungry and the timing is just right to go visit Nickie's brother's brand new restaurant, The Waterside Bistro.  He has purchased the end unit of a holiday rental lodge and has been open only a week. The view is unbelievable, the food was creative and delicious, and the Dark Island Dark Ale, from the Orkney Brewery was possibly the best beer that Ginger and I have ever had. Two of us had the special, lamb burger with haloumi, harissa hummus, tzatziki, and salad and French fries (chips).  The other two had Orkney Crab Rarebit!

Blue and yellow ribbons for Ukraine.  We have only seen a few Ukrainian flags 
and a donation box in the general store at Tornagrain.

Our tummies are more than full so we're well prepared to go to the Highland Park Distillery, which claims to have the best whisky in the world! Our guide, James, was a stitch (I think Scots are all issued senses of humor at birth) and also quite knowledgeable. We've been waiting outside on a flower planter for our four o'clock tour appointment and it's finally time!  We enter, of course, through the gift shop and then are shown into a small movie room.  We have a wee dram of their Full Volume (47%) and watch a video about how wonderful Highland Park whisky is.  Then we begin the tour.  James tells us that when he is in a good mood he reminds visitors that many of the doorways are low.  We learn the whole process from using the local spring water to germinating the barley and turning it with huge wooden paddles all the way to storing it in sherry-seasoned casks of Spanish or American oak. 

We haven't seen any of the twenty people who are employed in the making of the whisky and James tells us that two weeks ago a lorry lost control and tore out the large pipes that run across the street to the other part of the distillery.  They may be closed until the end of the year! In the meantime the company is paying their employees to volunteer for one of the national nature preserves!

We end up with a tasting of two of their best-selling whiskies, a twelve year old (40%) and an eighteen-year old (43%) we also have an angel water dropper if we prefer our whisky with a drop of water. James admits that he prefers the eighteen-year old one, but does he like it three times better than the other?  That's how much more expensive it is!  Here's a surprise - we get to keep one of the little tasting glasses with all the pretty etching on it!

Down to the gift shop and, once again, we close down the place!  And we're off, now to see the Stones of Stenness. The are part of the same Neolithic settlement as the Ring of Brodgar, but much less impressive, as many of the stones are gone.  And it was probably not as large to begin with.  The story goes that a farmer got tired of working around the stones and started taking them down.  The town's people were so angry that they tried to burn down his house!  Twice! One stone he took down was the Odin stone.  It had a hole in it and a couple would put their hands through the stone and say their marriage vows.

Jamie's not waiting for me!

Or for Ginger!

We know that Maestowe is closed but we hope we might catch of glimpse of the chambered cairn.  Not to happen!  You have to take a shuttle bus, so it's not even here!  WE do notice that there is a parking place reserved for parents with a child!  Wouldn't we have loved that when ours were little!

We make aa stop at Tesco for Connie and then go looking for Brig's Larder for me, as I continue my search for Strawberry Gin liqueur. The shop is closed but a helpful young woman goes back to look.  She has something similar and we'll go back in the morning to get it.  Marilyn's new favorite jeweler also has a shop quite close by, so we'll definitely be back!

We give some thought to checking out the Cathedral;  but it's late and we're tired and we still have a little time tomorrow before we queue up for the ferry at 3:45.

Back as the B&B we do a little organizing and then go down to the beautiful guest lounge to have coffee/tea and share the whisky cake that Marilyn bought at Highland Park.  She goes upstairs to bed and soon Nickie's wife comes home!  We all chat a bit and compliment Pat's restaurant.  And we meet the eldest daughter and their dog, Hattie!

It's time to post this, and hope that I might add some photos after I go back upstairs! (Yea, that actually happened a couple of days later!)