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.

Of course we had to nab at least one cache on our way out to the hike, so we nabbed the micro at Feugh Falls, and we had a DNF for a funky letterbox hybrid next to an ostrich farm. We had a lovely early dinner at the Potarch on our way home, and then it was time for bed!

After finding the cache we stopped for a cuppa before heading back the way we came. As we were scrambling down the scree I saw ahead of us something unusual, alien-like on the ground. [The next bit is not for the squeamish] As we got closer we realised it was the scattered internal organs of a deer. We only figured out it was a deer, because one of the organs was a placenta complete with tiny dead foetus. It is easily the weirdest thing we have ever seen. I took a photo. We don’t know how far along the female was when she was killed, but the foetus is a perfectly-formed tiny baby deer, complete with hooves. Head diameter perhaps 3cm. If we had a shovel we would have given Harold a proper burial, but we just named him (obviously the gender is a guess) and hoped the buzzards would get him soon to complete the circle of life. What an odd experience. I’m including the photo; even though he’s dead, he’s so cute and peaceful.

We walked the hike from the B&B. It was a warm and sunny day (rare in the Lake District), so we had a clear view from the very busy summit.

Cute photo of Wes patting a lamb at the farm, but it’s not a Herdwick (the breed of sheep that is local to the district, the one that was nearing extinction when Beatrix Potter saved it and all the traditional farming practices).We were on our way to a lovely meal at a posh house where we drank V&T’s on the lawn while we waited for the waiter to seat us.

We also went to the Pencil Museum, then had a steamboat ride on Lake Windemere where we got a surprise Red Arrows display! hey seriously did their stunts right above us, it was thrilling, we both had grins from ear to ear and I couldn’t stop giggling. Sunday night stayed in Grasmere Hostel. We had the whole hostel to ourselves and it had great views out it’s circular window, my how we love our circular windows, when we eventually settle in a place I’m sure it will have at least one.

We opened presents around the tree and called our families.

We drove hours through freezing fog and blinding winter sun, to see the sights of Scotland.

We tramped through valley, over moor and up hills,

We scrambled over slippery icy rocks, but we got nice views!

We slipped and slid on ice and admired the frozen landscape.

We made lots of sandwiches on the car with frozen fingertips.

We ate chocolates and tablet and leftover Rosemary the turkey until she came out our ears,

We drank water during the day, then at night bubbles and beers.

We played board games and giggled at nonsense.

We bought new pants at the Chemistore.

We shared a room all together for a week and didn’t get annoyed.

We stayed in a lighthouse with frozen pipes, then wasted a day looking for a shower that works.

We saw the New Year in with yummy local seafood; in a pub in a paddock in the middle of nowhere.

We received kisses from strangers at the ringing of the bells.

We lit Andy’s ‘Aussie’ rockets and drank Magda’s pink bubbles.

We were ‘Robbed’ in the lighthouse a few times each at various times.

We had an amazing week with Nick and Michelle.

We shared some good times with Magda and Andy too!

PS – Let Wes or I know if you want any pics at full size, we have some lovely widescreen wintery Scottish landscape shots.