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The other tourist site outside of Kirkwall that we really wanted to see was the Italian chapel. We took a local bus there (arriving just before a couple of coaches full of other tourists) but then walked the 6 miles back — against the wind. The Italian Chapel and the nearby Churchhill Barriers are just a couple of reminders from Orkney’s involvement in WWII.  During WWII, Italian prisoners of war were brought to Orkney to build naval defense barriers but were given permission to also build a place that they could worship with the scrap materials that were available.  The chapel has led to a continued relationship between Italy and Orkney, especially with the community of Meana (the home of the Italian that designed the chapel).

We saw a couple of unique sites on our walk back.  See what you think.

We  found some sites of interest in Kirkwall as well including the St. Magnus Cathedral, the Highland Park Distillery, lots of great retail shops with artisan crafts, and an interesting local museum. There was also this boat that I first saw on a morning run and made Bob go back and look at with me to make sure I wasn’t seeing things.  We were told it’s an old warship.

The St. Magnus Cathedral is Kirkwall’s most dominant building and an important part of its history.  It was founded in 1137 by the Earl of Rognvald to honor St. Magnus who was ordered by his cousin to be slain over a dispute over the ruling of Orkney.  It was built during the time when Orkney was under the rule of the Norse Earls.

We had a late afternoon tour of the Highland Park Distllery on the day  we were to sail off to Aberdeen.  We lucked out and got in with a group of cruise ship workers, so we got an extra taste.  

While we had arrived into Orkney via ferry from Scrabster to Stromness, we left by ferry from Kirkwall to Aberdeen.  This time it was a night sailing that would take approximately 7 hours (from about midnight to 7 am), so we paid to have a berth on board.  We also learned upon boarding that we wouldn’t’ have to leave the ship until 9:30 am.  This was nice as it allowed us to sleep in a bit and shower in our room once the ship was docked.

After leaving the ship we walked to our inn to check our bags.  We were staying at a pub/hotel owned by one of the large UK beer companies — Belhaven.  The staff were great, and we got breakfast the following morning before heading to Edinburgh.

For our one day in Aberdeen we walked a 6.5 mile route that we had found in one of our Travel Scotland brochures.  It took us out of the city center, past the University of Aberdeen, St. Machar’s Cathedral, through Seaton Park, along the River Don, and then along the Esplanade to the City of Aberdeen Beach before heading back into town.

Later in the day , after officially checking into our hotel, we did another walk about in the city center and spied the following —

Early on Saturday, May 6, Bob and I traveled to Kirkwall, Scotland, the largest town (@ 10,000 residents) in the Orkney Islands via train, taxi, ferry. We traveled by train from Inverness to Thurso on the Scottish mainland where we caught an already scheduled cab to take us to the nearby community of Scrabster. There we boarded a Northlink ferry for an hour and a half trip to the town of Stromness on the Orkney Mainland and then caught a bus right outside the ferry area to go to Kirkwall. We left Inverness at 7:00 am and arrived at our bed and breakfast about 3:30 pm.

We had wanted to see more of Scotland after our housesit.  Orkney was recommended to us by our Thornhill home owners. The Orkney Islands is a set of 70 islands (about 20 of which are occupied) off the northeastern coast of Scotland.  They are renowned for World Heritage Neolithic sites, war history, craftsmanship and wind (maybe not in that order). The people and whisky are pretty great too!  We had a lovely, relaxing (though BRISK) holiday on the mainland island.

For our first full day, we splurged on a tour of some of the major Neolithic sites on the western mainland. It was well worth it.  Clive, our tour guide was great.  He made what could have been just an exceptionally chilly day (see how we are all bundled up below) pondering the meaning of old stone formations really educational. We learned as much about the area as we did about the sites.

NOTE:  There is old and then there is crazy old.  This was a crazy old day.  The Neolithic Age though it means the “New Stone Age,” ended when metal tools were becoming mainstream — somewhere between 4000 and 2500 BC!

Our first stop was the Unstan Chambered Cairn (tomb).

Our second stop was the former community of Skara Brae

Next on the itinerary were a couple of henge (circular or oval-shaped bank with an internal ditch) and standing stone structures.

Appropriately enough, we end with another cairn (tomb).  This one was built around 2800 BC and has some impressive examples of runic inscriptions.  No photos were allowed inside.

Orkney is a cruise destination and unbeknownst to us when we were making our plans two cruise ships were due into port while we would be there. Monday was to be the first ship  (@ 3,500 passengers), so we planned to keep away from the main tourist sites by hiking up a nearby hill and then to a cairn. The ship ended up not being able to dock due to technical issues, but we went ahead with our plans anyway. Later in the afternoon, we met some friends of our home owners who had tea for us and then gave us a tour of the Eastern mainland.

Bob and I left Thornhill on a 6:30 am bus to Cumnock (1 hour commute), switching to a bus to Glasgow (approximately 1.5 hour commute) where we had about an hour wait for our train to Inverness.  We spent about a day and a half in Inverness before continuing on to  Kirkwall, the largest town in the Orkney Islands for a longer holiday.

We had beautiful weather in Inverness and were able to see much of the central city as well as some outlying areas.  Inverness, with a population of about 47,000, is considered the capital of the Scottish Highlands. It is the northernmost city (as opposed to a town, village, etc.) in the UK.  The River (not Loch/Lake) Ness runs through the city and joins up with the Moray Firth (an inlet of a sea).  

We enjoyed walking along the river.

In addition to our walks along the River Ness, we also walked the City Heritage Tour which began at the Inverness Castle.  There are no tours of the Castle since it is being used for other purposes, but you can stroll the grounds and take in some good views of the city

Below are some photos of some of the cool buildings we saw on our walkabouts.  

 

We had a lovely walk out to the Merkinch Nature Reserve which is 54.7 hectares of land and lies on the shore to the west of where the River Ness enters the sea.  it’s southern boundary is the Caledonian Canal (more on that below).

 

The Caledonian Canal connects the Scottish east coast at Inverness with the west coast near Fort William.  It is 60 miles long, and you can boat, paddle, cycle, or walk/run the length of it.

 

One of our last walks was up the Tomnahurich Cemetary Hill.  This was an interesting cemetary with graves all the way up the hill.



Bob and I welcomed our home owners back to Thornhill from New Zealand and Australia last Wednesday afternoon.  Bruce was thrilled to see them!  We had a lovely catch-up Wednesday evening before we caught the 6:30 am bus on the way to our Inverness/Orkney/Aberdeen adventure.  The following are some of our last photos of our time in Thornhill.

Some final pics of our beloved Bruce.

 

On the final weekend of April, Thornhill held its annual Music Festival.  We were here for it last year as well.  We went to see Redfish at the Farmers Arms Pub.  This was the same band we had seen last year but at a different venue.  We loved it — though the bit where we were having to stand directly in front of the speakers was a bit loud for our aging ears!

 

We got a few final hikes in around Thornhill.  One of the prettiest was around the nearby Dabton Loch.



Do you ever get the urge to leave the country?  Not like a post-election desire to head someplace for at least four years but just a momentary yen to check out what the neighbors on the other side of the border are up to?  Bob and I had a yen to visit Carlisle, England where we had briefly stopped a couple of times but only on train journeys to somewhere else.  Carlisle is about an hour drive from Thornhill, so we decided to check it out.

During our travels between Thornhill and Dumfries, we would pass a sign for the Friars Carse House Hotel.  It sounded nice, and it had a good website, so we decided to check it out one night.  It was lovely — beautiful hotel and grounds.  We got to check it out with a group of motorcyclists who had just ridden in for dinner or a visit or both.

We chose a hike out of a local community called Durisdeer for our last proper hike with Bruce.  I don’t know that it was one of our favorite hikes, as the  ground was fairly boggy and the views were not nearly as impressive as we have seen.  In fact, we didn’t even notice the Roman ruins that we were suppose to see on the way out until we were on the way back.  Still, it’s hard to complain about being out in nature on a nice day and seeing a new area.

 

Our last journey by car had us headed back to the Solway Coast to visit the Mersehead Nature Reserve.  This is a lovely area set aside for the preservation of wildlife with a circular walking trail and is especially favored by birders.


 

From the Mersehead Nature Reserve, we drove to the town of Dalbeattie.  We had driven through it a couple of weeks ago on our way to Rockcliff.  Wikipedia says that it is famed for its granite industry which we had confirmed for us by a stone monument that we saw in the local park.  

On the way back to Thornhill, we finally stopped at Ellisland Farm to at least view the farm where Robert Burns lived during the final years of his life (though he died in a house in the town of Dumfries).



We have had some great hikes recently.  First, we had been wanting to get back to the Grey Mare’s Tail to hike from there to Loch Skeen.  The last time we went we hiked up just far enough to get a good view of the waterfall, but it was too windy for us to go much higher since the path up is fairly close to the edge of the hill.  Luckily, last Sunday was a perfect day for hiking.

 

Since the hike to Loch Skeen was more mentally challenging than physically challenging, we decided to head back to Moffat to do the short Chapel hike that we hadn’t yet walked.  This is a 2 mile loop route that takes you out of town near the gulf course and up a fairly steep hill until you turn into the farmyard that has the ruins of the old chapel before walking back through farm fields and then along the river back into town.

 

On a weird weather Wednesday, Bob, Bruce, and I headed to the highest town in Scotland for a bit of a hike on the Southern Upland Way, Scotland’s coast-to-coast route.  We had walked a portion of this route out of St. John’s Town of Dalry.  On Wednesday we walked about 90 minutes out of Wanlockhead towards Sanquhar before turning around and coming back.  We started in heavy wind, got snowed on a bit, and then saw sun before we were through.

Many of our recent meanderings have seen us returning to places that we have already visited — either this year or last year — but doing different things.  Last Thursday, on Bruce’s 6th birthday, we headed out to Lochmaben where we had done a local walk with Bruce last year. Last year’s Castle Walk took us around the Loch to see ruins of a castle and fun sculptures carved from the trees along the walk.  This year we opted for a longer out-and-back hike along a portion of the Annandale Way that took us from the loch to Joe Graham’s monument outside of the community of Hightae.  (We had also walked a bit of the 55 mile Annandale Way out of the town of Annan a week ago.)  It was a great walk that was well-marked, and Bruce showed off how well he is aging!

 

On Friday, Bob and I went back to Castle Douglas to walk around it’s lake and also to stop by the local brewery for a 5 pound tour and tasting.  We don’t have any photos of the Sulwarth Brewery, but we had a great tour lead by the owner who told us about the history of the brewery (both the beer and the facility), how they had learned to bottle their own beer and how they are doing this for other UK craft brewers as well.  We also enjoyed our tastes of the beer that they are producing. 

 

We also returned to Moffat to do some more hiking. This time we chose the Craigieburn Forest Walk.  We had a lovely hike, but didn’t complete the “official” hike, as we ran out of trail markers and distinguishable path.

The region of Scotland in which we are staying is called Dumfries and Galloway.  It is one of 32 council areas in Scotland and is located in the western Southern Uplands.  Bob and I have been trying to see those parts of this region closest to Thornhill, where we are staying.

On bank holiday Monday of this week, we headed out with Bruce to do 2 short hikes — one starting in Kirkconnel and one starting in Sanquhar.  The Kirkconnel Village Walk was a 4km walk that started in town before heading out along the river, before bringing us back into town by the miners memorial.

In Sanquhar, we hiked the Euchan Glen walk which is a 5k walk that started in town before heading out of town near a golf course then following the Euchan water before heading back into town.

 

On Tuesday, Bob and I headed to Annan for some hiking and to check out the town a bit. There is a 55 mile Annandale Way walking route that starts near Moffat (see last post) and ends in Annan on the Solway Coast.  We walked just a bit of this route out of Annan north along the River Annan.  While we were out we helped reunite a dog with its owner.

 

On Wednesday we did a bit of a tour, visiting 3 different towns — St John’s Town of Dalry, Kirkcudbright, and Castle Douglas.  The visits were fairly quick but enough to give us a sense of each place.  In St. John’s, we walked part of the Southern Uplands Way which is Scotland’s only official coast-to-coast long distance route.

In Kirkcudbright we visited the Broughton House and Gardens which is the former home of the 19th century artist Edward Atkinson Hornel.  We enjoyed exploring his home and garden as well as viewing some of his paintings.  Afterwards, we walked around the main streets in town.

 

Finally, we did a quick walk-about of Castle Douglas but decided that we’d need to come back.

Dumfries is the closest larger town to Thornhill, so we have visited this town a few times on this trip as well as during last year’s visit.  However, we had not made it to the Dumfries Museum nor the Gracefield Arts Centre, so we decided to combine a visit to those sites with a stop at the recently reopened Annandale Distillery.  We had a lovely day out.

Bob and I paid the 3.5 pounds to see a 360 degree view of Dumfries via the camera obscura.  This may be the oldest camera obscura still working anywhere.  It was installed and has been in continuous operation since 1836!  Neither Bob nor I could imagine what the individuals in that time must have thought of such a thing.  While some neighbors worried about being spied on, a current day visitor (not really getting what he was looking at apparently) wondered how it could be in color and not black and white.

 

The Annandale Distillery marks the rebirth of a distillery on a site that had been dormant for almost a century.  The historic distillery has been through 3 whiskey making eras and a period when it was used for farming.  It was formerly a Johnnie Walker distillery which closed in 1918.  After a 10.5 million pound restoration (beautiful — especially the woodwork!), it reopened in November of 2014.  Since Scotch Whisky must be aged for 3 years, the distillery will release its first whisky this November — one smoky (peated) and one smooth (unpeated).  In the meantime, they are giving tours, operating a beautiful tea room, and selling liqueur that doesn’t have to be aged as well as other gift items.

Along with exploring the larger Dumfries and Galloway region, we also like to have our non-car days where we get to know different areas around Thornhill and get out and about with Bruce.   The following is the latest installment in “Hiking with Robert and Bruce” (as opposed to Hiking with Robert the Bruce — which would be nasty since he’s long dead).  This time we did a Thornhill-Closeburn-Cample-Thornhill loop that we had learned about from staff at The Trigony Hotel when we stopped there for a look around.

Last week as Bob and I left the Grey Mare (waterfall) to drive to Locherbie, we passed the town of Moffat.  We went back yesterday for a visit.  We were charmed!  It is apparently a tourist town that is also a Dark Sky Community (promotes stargazing) and the first Walkers are Welcome town (walker-friendly) in Scotland.  It has a number of walking trails, hotels, a lovely park, and a nice retail area.    We loved it despite having an up and down weather day that included a bit of hail during our hike!