Woke up to rain, or is it just heavy drizzle? I had a ferry to Hoy booked for 10 am, so I didn’t really need to rush, but equally couldn’t be late. This gave me time for coffee and porridge, which should be the starting point for a good day. It should be noted that today was going to be long, as I had another ferry booked at 23:45, so I wasn’t really in any rush anywhere. Except ensure I ended up at Kirkwall where the ferry leaves from.

By the time I left the site, it had stopped drizzling, and I had a nice cycle along the Ness and through the Stromness cobbled streets in just a jumper. I’d pre-booked the ferry, and they just needed my name for me to get on. It is a pedestrian ferry, so I had to take my bags off and lug the bike down some steps. My bags were carefully stowed in a big box on deck. I was the first on board, followed by one other tourer, two normal bikes, and a couple of Bromptons. There was also a party of school kids (and various French people – obviously).

It started to rain, or maybe it was just the boat driving into the drizzle, releasing the water, but the kids stayed on deck, leaving the cabin nice and quiet. I popped out on deck as we passed the campsite for a photo, but otherwise, I knew I would be in the weather all day, so I took refuge while I could.

We landed at Moaness on Hoy, which also required carrying the bike up steep steps, but the boat guy carried my bags up, which was nice. The rain had set in, so I put my new coat on (which has now picked up fashionable chain oil stains) and headed off.

Hoy (or rather North Hoy) is a wild place. The road climbed up into the mist, and the rain got harder. It was quite an exhilarating ride. There were one or two cars (and one coach), coming the other way  but it felt really remote.

I stopped at the high point, and a motorcyclist also stopped and we had a chat, generally about how nice it was yesterday. The way he was wrapped up reminded me of my last trip here. I think on a bicycle you get wetter, but the waterproof gear is much more manageable than motorbike gear. Therefore, it is a lot less hassle. Its a mindset, getting wet is part of cycling, but not part of motorcycling. Therefore, cafes and pubs, etc, seem more accommodating for the damp cyclist.

The downhill from here was great, and as I got lower, into the subtropical South Hoy, even the sun came out! I think I got a bit optimistic and decided to head past the point I was to catch the ferry later, onto South Walls, a new island. The main attraction was the Longhope Lifeboat Museum.

I crossed the causeway onto South Walls, and then headed straight back again. This definitely counts as  bagging a new island. Its not as if I had landed at South Walls airport, and was only a transit passenger (which definitely wouldn’t count). This is important, as of the 42 countries I visited, there are another four I don’t count for the above reason (namely; Sweden, Jordan, Egypt and Columbia).

I feel I should also point out that I am writing this in a pub, three pints in, while waiting for a midnight ferry – so apologies for the ramblings!

The Lifeboat museum was great, the boat was built in the 1930s, and was in use until 1972. It is still regularly launched, albeit lowered gently down the slipway. The curator, asked whether you would send your 90 year old mother down the slipway – I think it was a rhetorical question!

When I came out, clearly the weather had changed. I decided to have a quick cookie, which I bought in the Coop last night with some other stuff. I tried to use my Coop card, to get some discount. Every time I scanned my card, the assistant said the price wasn’t going down. It turned out that every scan was adding more cookies to my bill (it got to eight before she realised). Oh how we laughed, but I did get my 10p saving on crisps eventually.

I headed off in the rain, but even worse was the headwind as a rounded the end of the Loch. It was not much better on the north side, and I was getting battered. The most annoying thing was that I’d taken my shoe covers off, and I really didn’t want wet shoes on the overnight ferry. There is such a fine line between shoes being air dried and getting wetter, either in the rain or just sweating out when the rain stops. The final few hills back to Lyness were hard. There seemed to be a few interesting industrial buildings that piqued my interest. There were also a lot of WW2 defences and buildings.

I made it to Lyness Ferry and was hoping for a cafe, but instead, there was the Scapa Flow Museum (and cafe). What a result!

I thought I was booked on the 3pm ferry, so as I sat down at 1:30 for Vegetable and Lentil Soup (I still feel bad for abandoning a tin of Lentil Soup on Lewis), I checked my ferry ticket. It was for 2 pm. The food was too good, and the museum too enticing to miss. I booked myself on the last ferry at 16:40 (at the cost of £3.20, its only money). The museum was excellent. The things that happened in Scapa Flow in both the first and second world wars really does need documenting.

The museum is set in an old fuel oil pumping station. During WW2 150,000 people worked around Scapa Flow, maintaining the home fleet. The main thing I knew was when the Germans scuttled the whole German Fleet in 1919. There are excellent stories about Orkney school kids going on a boat trip around the impounded German Navy at the time the secret message was sent for the German captains to sink their own ships. Over 50 ships were sunk (much to the school children’s delight) in a few hours. There have been so many tragedies in Scapa Flow, and 1000’s of sailors have lost their lives here. In 1939, The Royal Oak was torpedoed by a U-boat, and over 800, out of a crew of 1200, lost their lives. The museum covers all this in great detail and you can’t beat being in this really remote place to experience it. The weather had improved during my time in the museum, so missing the early ferry was a good decision.

After another coffee in the Museum Cafe, it was time to catch the ferry to Houghton. This was right across Scapa Flow, but the ferries passenger lounge was below the waterline with no windows, so I didn’t see much of it. Arriving at Houghton, I walked off the ferry with the staff from the museum, and lots of builders who are obviously working on Hoy for the day and commuting back to Orkney Mainland. The ferry carries vehicles, but I imaging at quite a high cost.

I now needed to get to Kirkwall. The weather had improved considerably. I had planned on cycling past Kirkwall to visit South Ronaldsway, to see the Italian Chapel and the Churchill Barriers. It was now a bit too late, and I felt I had learnt more about those things in the Scapa Flow Museum and i had done a few extra miles to South Walls instead.  I headed off towards the “main road” to Kirkwall. Before getting too far I spotted a bus shelter with a good view over Scapa Flow, and a parked oil rig. It looked a perfect place for some food for the 20 km ride.

The road was really quiet, with a few dead straih hills. They generally looked worse than they were and I was soon into the outskirts of Kirkwall. Its the biggest town on the Orkneys, but it didn’t seem as big a culture shock as when I cycled into Stornoway on Lewis. There is a nice new hospital built on top of the hill, and when you see the old one, fenced off next door, they definitely needed it.

It was about 6:45, so I only had to wait 5 hours for the ferry. The obvious thing to do was go to the pub! I ended up in the Bothy Bar. There weren’t enough tables so I had my Scottish Meat Pie at the bar, which was the perfect location to observe all the comings and goings. It was an entertaining evening. The bar, despite advertising “Orkney Cask Ales”, had no cask ale which after the only keg beer, gave me the opportunity to test more Orkney Brewery bottled beer. I had a Corncrake, which seemed apt after one kept me awake on North Uist (that seems like years ago – cycle touring certainly stretches time), and also  another Puffin served properly.

Inevitably, I had to leave the pub. It had started to get chilly, and there was a bit of rain in the air, so I quickly pedalled the mile or so to the Northlink Ferry Terminal. I only had two hours to wait here. Initially the waiting room was quiet until the German coach hotel arrived and the passengers filled the room. I haven’t mentioned it before, but I’ve been seeing this huge coach, that seems to have beds in the back and in the roof. I’ve definitely seen it since Lairg, when it overtook me. I think I may have seen it on the Hebrides, although that might have been an even bigger one with the beds in a massive trailer towed behind the coach.  This particular one had been on my campsites at Thurso and Stromness. Anyway, one group of them proceeded to ignore the no alcohol sign by opening lots of beer, seemed to be threatening to start singing, and then knocked all the beer bottles over! The rest of the group tried to ignore them and had probably spent too long in very close confines with them.

Fortunately, as a cyclist, I had to leave the foot passengers and hang around, waiting for the word to load the bike on board. There was one other cyclist who had just finished a week of organised touring on the Orkneys and was heading up to Shetland for a few days solo. We are both getting the same route home, so I’m sure our paths will cross. Once on board, I headed straight to the sleeping pods, which seem pretty good, big wide reclining chairs.

No map today – my Garmin has suddenly decided to stop talking to my Phone (and Strava).

Total Dist Cycled 722 km, (448 miles) 7 Ferries, 1 Train