Orkney Islands - 1

At the beginning of August, I enjoyed a day trip to Orkney in the company of a former work colleague.



The day started with a journey of 123 miles from Inverness to John o' Groats in the far north east of the Scottish mainland.

The wild, windswept Orkney Islands lie off the northernmost tip of the British mainland (at around the same latitude as Stockholm) and are noted for their stunning scenery and historic sites stretching back millennia. There are about 70 islands all up, though little over a dozen are populated. Much of the landscape consists of moors blanketed in heather or sweeping grasslands, with more varied terrain in places such as Hoy.