Land's End to John O'Groats and Orkney on a Bike Friday Tandem

Day 26 (July 10)

The brief spell of good weather disappeared and today was heavily overcast, with mist and some sprinkles of rain, and quite strong and cold north winds. We had planned a day of walking on the cliffs and bird watching. We rode 5 miles north to Birsay, hoping for it to clear up a little. We wandered around Earl's Palace - a 17th century home now in ruins. No improvement in the weather. We walked across the the causeway (covered at high tide) to the Brough anyway, and up to the edge of the cliffs. There we were excited to see a large number of puffins flying back to their nests on the cliffs, a soaring gannet, shag, guillemot, stormy petrel, razorbill, great skua, herring and black backed gulls, and other sea birds. Seeing puffins was the main goal of the day, so we were very happy.


Marwick Head from Brough Head	Shopping in Stromness

We were getting cold so we returned to Birsay and had a brief look round the church - not very interesting since most of the evidence of the antiquity had been plastered over. We then cycled south to Appie's Tearoom, for which we had seen fliers all over the island. Appie's is a photography gallery and tea room, about half a mile off the road. It's in the middle of nowhere, but was quite packed at lunchtime, and we ended up sharing a table with a couple. Chatting, we found out that the wife had lived for some years in Pasadena, California, where I work and where we used to live. She also advised us to see a display of paintings by an Orkney painter, Stanley Cursiter, at the Orkney museum in Kirkwall. The food at Appie's lives up to the advertisements, and was excellent (crab or leek soup, a selection of local cheeses with chutneys, and rhubarb ginger crumble for desert). The views from the windows were lovely, and we enjoyed a long lunch break out of the wind and mist.

After lunch we cycled 7 miles to Stromness. We did some shopping, but we found not much else there to see. The wind made the ride back north to the B&B harder, but it was not too far. Since we had a large lunch, we just had snacks for dinner, and didn't need to venture out again.

Mileage: 34.7 miles

Orkney map and pictures

Elevation
Elevation Profile

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Last modified 25 July, 2007