By the time we awoke this morning, last night's wind had subsided and although it was a little cool, the sky was bright and there was evidence of blue sky. We breakfasted on warm cinnamon rolls, pain au raisin and juice, readied the van to leave the site and as we had time before our ferry to Orkney, we ventured out onto Dunnett Head.
This was a good choice as we saw lots of interesting birds including; Guiellemots, Fulmars, Great Skuas, Kittiwakes and Lesley spotted a Puffin. After just a short visit, we made our way to Gills Bay for the ferry to Orkney and crossed to St Margaret's Hope quite quickly spotting more birds en route including Razorbills and, we think, Arctic Skuas.
By the time we reached the Orkneys the dark clouds that had been following us dropped their light drizzle but within minutes of reaching our campsite at Pool Farm, the sky had brightened again and we were able to appreciate the view across to the East with fields and the sea beyond.
After some refreshment we set off to explore South Ronaldsay heading in a southerly direction right to the end of the road and a foot passenger only ferry that operates in summer time only from John o' Groats. We noted two potential overnight wild camping spots if required but are or one likely to need these in the North of the island during our time here.
We spotted more birds en route including Lapwings and stopped at one or two viewpoints to enjoy the island scenery and try to identify which of the many islands we could see from any one point. We travelled northwards across two of the Churchill Barriers built during the latter part of WWII by Italian prisoners of war to prevent German U boats from accessing the British Fleet at Scapa Flow.
We returned to the campsite to plan our next couple of days, Lesley cooked her famous chorizo stew and we edited photos, read and watched a little tv before retiring to bed, whilst being aware of the mid summer sky despite the cloud!
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