After a rather luxurious night in a B&B (in between two hostel stays), we made the trek to one of Scotland’s most isolated beaches. This is Sandwood Beach, and it can only be reached by a 4 mile walk in – and 4 miles back of course! As you can see from the grin on his face, Wes was in heaven!

We spent some lovely days hiking and exploring this natural wonderland, all from our base of the Achmelvich Youth Hostel. I think honestly we could have stayed for two or more weeks based near Lochinver and there’s no way we’d get bored. This area they call the Geopark, because of the unique geological formations all over. The oldest rocks in the world can even be found here. Absolutely fascinating, I probably should’ve studied geology, I am such a rock nerd. It is certainly the wild west as well, as there weren’t many people about at all. We managed to find a few geocaches during our express trip to the Northwest, but not nearly as many earthcaches as we could have found, if only we had more time!

This is the beach our youth hostel was on. You can see the peak on the right is Suilven, which we climbed while we were based there. It was possibly the toughest walk we’ve ever done.

The next photos are:

• Suilven from the ‘policeman’s helmet’ side, which is the peak we hiked up
• Me on the way back down to the saddle from the peak
• Suilven from the side, so you can see we went up to the saddle, then up to the right

Soon after landing in Stromness, we checked into our hostel for four nights and were warming ourselves with soup and beer at a local cafe with a harbour view, Wes likes his boaty views.

Then we were starting our ancient visits with Stones of Stenness and Ring of Brodgar.

Sunday dawned sunny and windy, a welcome change from Saturday’s rain. After a tour of the very interesting Neolithic tomb Maeshowe then a look at Scara Brae Neolithic village, we went to Appie’s Tearoom for a spot of lunch. Ooh my were we impressed! We went for the Orkney seafood platter, and it was amazing! We ended the day with a visit to Brough of Birsay, an ancient site on a tidal island.

The rain returned on Monday (and Tuesday, Wednesday, etc), so coupled with the gale force winds, made for difficult sightseeing. We managed a tour around the rest of the mainland, plus the eastern islands connected to the mainland by the Churchill Barriers. We visited the Italian Chapel, some wee coastal villages and the Tomb of the Eagles. This tomb is a privately-owned site, so we were allowed to handle all the 5000 year old tools and bones, amazing. They said they’ve asked museums and universities for advice, and handling them doesn’t affect them in any way, so they laugh at the other sites for having everything tucked away in glass cabinets. We were First to Find some geocaches around this side too, very exciting!

Tuesday was the last full day we had on Orkney, so we had to bite the bullet, face the weather and get our butts over to Hoy to check out the old man a bit closer up. We hired bikes and ferried over, landing at Moaness pier, an hour’s push bike ride from the start of the hike. An hour of undulating single track road which would in normal weather be rather pleasant. Add gusty winds, freezing sideways rain and you have a frustrating, sometimes scary (when cars pass quickly) ride! But we made it over to Rackwick Bay, had a squizz at the beach, got pelted by a hail shower, sheltered in an old shed to eat sandwiches, then left our bikes and started the walk. It was worth it, this is reputedly the tallest sea stack in Europe at 137m.

The return journey was nicer, with the rain and wind clearing for perhaps half an hour of sunshine, so we got the pleasant ride we wanted, albeit for a short time! We even braved a detour to have a look at the Dwarfie Stane, and the next hail storm timed itself perfectly for our arrival at the massive stone tomb, so we crawled inside and curled up to wait for it to pass.

As it was our last night on Orkney we bought some Orkney porter beers and drank Orkney whisky with some people at the hostel. Keep in mind though, if you want to save some whisky for later, don’t offer to share it with Scots!

We had a few hours left on Orkney on Wednesday morning before our 4pm ferry back to mainland Scotland, so we visited the Woolshed and I bought some wool from the seaweed-eating sheep of North Ronaldsay, so I can knit Wes a beanie. We also had time to check out one last ancient site - there are heaps of them up there. My voice had almost come back by Wednesday, but my throat was (and is) still sore in the mornings and at night.

We ended Wednesday with a monster drive from the Scrabster ferry to a b&b at Kinlochbervie, in preparation for our walk to Sandwood Bay on Thursday. Another story to come.

Last night I ate an early dinner at Havis on their terrace. My colleague in the Helsinki office recommended this restaurant for the fish. I had scallops with cauliflower purée and Parma ham followed by strawberries, vanilla ice cream and cinnamon cake.

Tonight I am back at the same Finnish restaurant my workmates took me to at lunch. At lunchtime I had the reindeer and mashed tatties, this evening I will try the lohikeitto, the creamy salmon soup I’ve been wanting to try since I read about it on wikipedia.

Breakfast was picked herrings, smoked mackerel, eggs and yummy dark grainy rye bread. Oh and it’s not all about food! The homeware brands they have here rock! Iittala, Arabia, Marimekko, and Aarrika. Marimekko is probably my fav, they have fabric designs to buy by the metre as well. And the cartoon characters Moomin are really cute and funny. Ok so I’m a little bit in love with this city and Finnish design!

Oh yeah that soup was tasty! And the bread they give is divine! If bread can be divine. They had the wine recommendations on the menu too so I had to take their advice. That leads me to now, when I’m sipping the Austrian  white that I can’t remember the name of, while I wait for my dessert (soft meringue with rhubarb cider sorbet) and the Finnish berry wine. Glass of, mind you ;)

The menu’s wine recommendations were tops last night as well. The Asti they recommended with my strawberries, ice-cream and cinnamon bread was worth taking a photo of the label! Wes and I cycled through that region last year on our Italian push bike holiday, so I had to try it :)

Needless to say, my work daily food allowance is not even enough to cover my two evening meals, but it’s been worth it. Like a mini holiday/work sandwich at almost no cost to me. Except for the presents I had to buy Wes – I only wish he was here too.

I just remembered another reason why I think I was meant to be Finnish. The government have implemented a recycling incentive scheme. Every time you buy a product which is sold in a recyclable packaging, you pay extra for it (20c for small plastic bottle, 15c for can, 10c for glass bottle, 40c for large plastic bottles). Let’s call that the packaging supplement. For example I bought a 500ml plastic bottle of water from the supermarket that costs €1.29, but i had to pay €1.49 for it. Then if you take the empty container back to the supermarket and insert it into a machine, it spits out a voucher of exactly the same amount as you paid for the supplement that you can use on your next purchase. Unfortunately the hotel cleaners nicked my empty bottle before I understood the concept so I’ll never get back my 20c! Take that britain, land of landfill gobblers (out of 16 flats, we are the only ones who recycle). Now it’s time for dessert.

Ok the Finnish berry wine was a mistake, not sweet enough. I should’ve stuck with the recommendation, which coincidentally was the same Asti I loved from last night’s restaurant. The soft meringue was lovely, the rhubarb sorbet and diced fresh strawberries good company for it, but the rhubarb and cider soup was unnecessary, having the texture of babyfood. Ew. Don’t worry I still ate most of it.

Back at the hotel now (which also has recycling bins in the rooms – go Scandic!), and I’m ready for bed. Only two downsides for me so far: most cache locations smell like pee; and at the end of the day my face is covered in London-style soot particles. Two small offsets for all those positives don’t you think! That and apparently some Russian bears have migrated into mid-Finland.

Holy crap a double espresso with a bit of warm milk costs €3.20!! I should’ve just popped into the office where they have an espresso machine. Goodness gracious me. I remember drinking single espresso in Portugal for 70c.

Another good thing is the language isn’t nearly as difficult to pronounce as it looks. Words are really long, but pretty much pronounced phonetically, give or take a few sounds my mouth just will not make.

Then it was time to hit the road again to the Finzean Farm Shop and Teahouse for afternoon tea snacks before a quick roadside TB drop cache then home again. Now we are settled onto the couch with our red wine, gorgonzola and Finzean venison chorizo. Yum! Fingers crossed Missy’s battery is charged enough for another spin tomorrow!

Saturday 6 March 2010 marked the one year anniversary of our wedding day. We had an amazing time relaxing at Turnberry for 3 nights. It was romantic and lovely, but of course it was also a time to remember how much fun we had this time last year with our friends and family in Oz. Presents for the first year are traditionally made of paper, so I gave Wes an ordinance survey map of Girvan and surrounding areas, as well as a 1946 photo postcard of the Turnberry lighthouse, complete with loving message and stamp from its original owner. Wes gave me a (mostly empty) book, the best part was the first page. It’s a wedding anniversary memories book, and so of course only the first year’s page has been filled in! To quote Wes in the book, here are some of our memories from our first year as man and wife:

‘Carving up the white stuff at Cairngorm and Glenshee; cycling and eating our way through the Italian Dolomites; bagging munros Lochnagar and Buachaille Etive Mor; yummy hot chocolate at Cafe Chocolat in Schiphol Airport; the coldest campout and world class waves in Thurso; warm sun, fine arts, macaroons and pleasant traffic police in Paris; Aberdeen Christmas with Gerrod and Kristy – two trees, vodka shots, turkey and mountain adventures; hiking fells, The Red Arrows and Herdwick sheep in the Lakes District.’

I forwarded our auction brochure to a few workmates in London hoping they’d buy some of the stuff (they do get paid more down there!). One of them sent the local PR company out to meet us so I had to pose in those crazy high Prada heels! It was the Press and Journal photographer (yes that’s my foot in the pose link!) who came out. It was absolute chaos! In a good way. We raised over £1800 from the auction, plus another £700+ from a cake bake sale. We were completely overwhelmed by everyone’s generosity. I even managed to successfully bid on a pair of tickets to the local football game, so the following day (Saturday 13th Feb) Wes and I headed down to Pittodrie Stadium to watch our local soccer team take on Celtic from Glasgow.

We had an excellent time, despite the midday kick off and the alcohol ban. The supporters were so excited, especially the Celtic fans. Loud and a little bit scary. It was an evenly-matched game too, so good for spectators, even though Celtic were the favourites going in. And as I found out this week at work, the game will be forever known as ‘the game with all the goals’ after a 4-4 draw. Apparently the Dons hardly ever score :|

Notice all the cops in the corner?

Check out the security in between Celtic and Aberdeen fans!

So we went snowboarding – twice so far! The first time at Cairn Gorm with Gerrod and Kristy, the second time at Glenshee with my friend Cat’s husband and his mates. Cat was cosied up at home with little Aimee, bump and a hot chocolate. Snowboarding’s too dangerous when you’re up the duff, so she lent me her gear and off I went. And didn’t I find out how dangerous it is! Oh my tailbone. Two weeks later it still hurts when I walk and when I bend over. But it was so cool to be on the slopes doing something with Wes that he loves. He had a fantastic day up on Glas Maol in the afternoon cruising off piste from the black runs, he’s so talented!

And of course the surf is working as well, so Wes has been out in the water too (I’m far too chicken to get wet in this weather – water temp seven degrees).

We’ve also been out walking/geocaching. I’m completely addicted to geocaching now.

As you may have read, we had some car trouble, in fact Wes at first didn’t want to drive it at all! But we convinced him we could call the AA if he got really worried, and his worry was justified when the whole exhaust fell off! Lucky we are members of AA (we joined when we bought the mini), and they came to our rescue!

We managed to squeeze in a day of skiing, we’ve been blessed with the ‘best snow conditions for 15 years’ this year, so we were in luck! Unfortunately the visibility the day we went (27th Dec) was so poor, down to 10m at times. Ok for me though – I had my first snow sports experience ever. I had a snowboarding lesson, and I was only going 10-20m at a time anyway!

Anyway, the bonfires are usually coupled with fireworks, or in city areas just the fireworks. Thursday night November 5th we watched the fancy fireworks set to music at Aberdeen Beach. But Saturday we wanted to experience the ‘proper’ burning of the Guy. Scott from work suggested Banchory so we took the mini for another spin down the B9077 (she does love that road!). We ate stovies, a traditional Scottish dish, then elbowed our way through the munchkins and kiddlywinks to front row position by the warmth of the massive burning pile of trash (mainly broken pallets, garden waste, a few wooden planks and doors). The fireworks at Banchory were much more impressive than the city ones, even if they didn’t bother with music.

I still have mixed feelings about fireworks in general, after Mum and I visited Gerrod and Kristy in New York. While we were there, we took a tour of the UN Headquarters building, and there was a poster declaring that if we all gave up fireworks for just one New Years Eve, we could use the money to get all the third world countries out of debt. I’m not sure if I got the statistic exactly correct, but it was something like that. So whenever I’m enjoying the spectacle, I think about that poster, but I’m not sure there’s anything I can do about it.