Thursday’s Mileage: 124
Total Mileage: 1596
On the Car Stereo:
Live Radio: Country Hits Radio: Breakfast with Jennie Longdon, Mid-Mornings with Baylen Leonard | BBC Radio Scotland: Mornings with Steven Jardine, The Afternoon Show with Grant Stott
Strathpeffer to Orkney
Thursday was an early start with a good drive of almost 100 miles to get to Scrabster, to catch the ferry to Stromness, Orkney.
The route up to Caithness from Strathpeffer is fairly simple – Just get on the A9 and follow it to the end but it is single carriageway the whole way so I left plenty of extra time in case there were any issues. Roadworks, getting stuck behind lorries and tractors….all make the journey quite slow (and frustrating) at times.
But yesterday I had very few issues. One set of roadworks slowed me down, but otherwise it was a clear run up to the Northen coast to catch the ferry and I arrived ahead of schedule.
The ferry journey itself was quite simple. There weren’t that many passengers, it felt a bit weird being on an empty ferry! I sat outside as I could take my mask off there (hate wearing those things). It was nice to see people with dogs on the decks as well. I don’t see that on the Dover-Calais ferries as pets have to stay in cars during those crossings.
Some of the cliffs which can be seen from the ferry – particularly going past Hoy – are great. I saw some dolphins too, they followed the ferry a little way – that was exciting to watch. 🙂
On arrival in Stromness it was a short but fairly easy drive to Kirkwall, where I am staying for 2 nights. I’m slowing things down a bit now as I’ve done a lot of driving over the last week!
I ate dinner at the hotel – steak pie followed by a sticky toffee pudding with ice cream (I was asked “Would you like to wait for vanilla ice cream or would you like another flavour? Someone’s just gone to the shop to get some more”….I was happy to wait.
I’ve planned a short route which I can do today, which will take in some of the key sights of Orkney. The museums in Kirkwall and Orkney will be included in today’s itinerary (tickets have been booked) as well as a couple of other bits as well which I want to do 🙂
FH.
