Not our day.

 Well, at least it was nearer to 6 am when the gas ran out this time. The last one on June 21st ran out in the middle of the night! Ian decided not to go out in his underpants, but to wear my dressing gown instead. . Looked a lovely sight and even that early in the morning, one must admire his legs. He did win the 'best player legs' when the ladies challenged the men to a netball match in Australia back in the 80s, the criteria then were no shorts to be worn, just skirts. To see him in my netball skirt was a hoot!

With both awake, we breakfasted early and set off for today's attractions. Intriguing and had to be seen was the tomb of the Eagle and Otter.  It was to the south of the island, a new place for us to explore.

Nearing our destination brown signs appeared but what was a little worrying was the tomb part of it had been very lightly painted out. The letters were still very visible so, assuming a bit of island graffiti had been going on, carried on anyway.

Well down this lane, with grass growing in the middle, we came to where the eagle tomb turn was. A gate blocked our way and the words CLOSED written across it. Damn! Okay, let's carry on to the Otter tomb.

This time the lane led us to a Bistro. Wow, talk about in the middle of nowhere. How did it get any trade? Anyway we stopped at the car park, got all togged up for a longish walk and then went into the Bistro building where the visitor centre was. Would you credit it! That was closed too, but with the bistro open, we thought to enquire there. Well, no wonder that brown sign had been painted over. That tomb was closed and had been for several years! Until they find a guide willing to take people into it, it will remain closed. 

Oh dear, not doing so well today, and wondered what else there was to do and see. We decided to go to Burwick. It was almost the most Southerly point, and a foot passenger ferry left from there to go to John O'Groats, we thought we may be able to see mainland Scotland. 

The place looked deserted. We stopped next to a caravan and walked to where the ferry terminal was. But where was it? A disused hut was all there was to be seen. We walked over the hill and onto the cliff, looked across the bay and assumed what we saw was Scotland.

Orkney has some stunning coastlines.

We laughed together and said should we wait for the ferry to arrive, might be quite a nice excursion for the afternoon. We did wait a while, could see no ferry coming in any direction, so walked back to MB. The chap in the caravan happened to be outside, and we mentioned the ferry to him. He laughed. 'You'll have a very long wait' said he. 'The ferry stopped running over a year ago!'

That did it for us. No more trying to find things to do. Instead, we would drive and see what the coast was like. At a place called Sands of Wright, we stopped to admire the lovely beach. This was also a place where you could stop overnight, but it was still a bit early for us so stopping only to take some photos, left that fabulous place and continued toward Kirkwall.

Over the Churchill barriers again and instead of heading for Kirkwall, turned right towards Stromness. We stopped again at Loch Harray, we had stayed overnight several days ago, and hoped for an Otter sighting. Apparently, Otters have been seen at this Loch. 

Tomorrow we will be taking a ferry as foot passengers to the Island of Hoy. This time from a place called Houton to Lyness. The Scapa Flow museum is there and Ian has always wanted to visit. Not sure if it will be my cup of tea, but we will see. 

And seen on route