So we are back from travelling to the islands of Stronsay, Sanday and Eday. The weather could hardly have been any better, we only had about 3 hours of rain in the 5 days we were on the road and loads of sunshine. However, this still doesn't mean T-Shirt weather. It is hardly ever T-Shirt weather in Orkney. Nice weather in April means that the hats and gloves come off and that you feel toasty in your rain trousers and rain jacket. One day in the sand dunes of Sanday even the jackets came off and the kids played in the sand barefoot.

Stronsay was our first island on this trip. The village of Whitehall in Stronsay looks quite grand along the northern shore. It really was grand 100 years ago with at times up to 4'000 inhabitants during herring season. Now it's down to a couple hundred, but the character of it is still perceivable. Our hotel was in the middle of the village. Other than that, Stronsay is a surfer's paradise or rather would be, if the water was warmer. Within a short area there are beaches facing all directions, so one is always bound to have good surf. This didn't really interest us, but it means that there's also always a beach that is somewhat sheltered from the wind. We spent a lot of time on one of those, relaxing in the middle of the high grass on the small sand dunes. The kids built a small shelter in the grass which was very comfy. And of course we also went to see the Vat of Kirbister, Orkneys most spectacular cliff arch. It has to be said that we've already spent a lot of time by the cliffs and you would think that we've just about seen it all. But every time we go to see more cliffs there are features which we haven't seen before. There are so many incredible rock formations on the Orkney coasts that you never tire looking at them. Gloups, arches, caves, stacks to just name the most spectacular ones.


Of course the story about Stronsay wouldn't be complete without mentioning the dozens of newly born lambs we saw in the fields.

In Sanday it was a different species that impressed us (somewhat): Rabbits. There were so many around, it was a miracle we didn't run one over (although plenty of other people had ...). Sanday is, what can you say, full of sand. On a nice day (which we had two of) the beaches are as impressive as anything I've seen in other parts of the world. There are about 10 beaches, one more beautiful than the previous, the longest being about 4km long. We spent a lot of time at the Tresness beach, which has sand dunes 20m high. We especially brought some sledges to slide down the dunes. It wasn't quite as fast as in the snow, but still a lot of fun, as was the jumping down into the very steep dunes sides. The kids jumped from 1m behind the ledge, over the flat and then sailed down 2m vertically to land in the steep soft sand. I couldn't quite muster the courage to do the same, I guess it's part of growing up ... On the second day in Sanday we got an incredible lunch 'basket' from our very impressive B&B (we would have loved to stay longer, they have the best shower north of London ...) and spent some more time in the cliffs and on the beaches. Apparently one of the paths to the cliffs has been washed out by the winter storms. Four meters of coastline has disappeared, so we just kind of tumbled down the dunes to the beach. The getting back up was a bit more difficult.


After our brilliant time in Sanday we moved on to Eday and I wasn't sure whether Eday would be able to compete with the other islands because in my eyes it's the least touristy. There is also no real village in Eday, whereas Stronsay has Whitehall and Sanday has Kettletoft and Lady Village. Having said that, we hardly ever saw any tourists anywhere at all except when looking in a mirror. But we certainly saw most of them in Eday. Eday has other qualities. Not the best beaches (but quite nice ones), not the most spectacular cliffs (but quite nice ones), but very nice colors with the brown heather, the green grass and the blue lake and seas (neither Sanday nor Stronsay are very heathery) but best of all a great ranger called Jenny. She showed us more wildlife than we'd seen on the other islands, she knew all the birds, shells and footprints. Even though we are still missing an otter sighting we are now proud otter footprint and poo viewers. She also got us addicted to looking for 'Groatie Buckies' (a shell called Cowrie outside Northern Scotland). It's supposed to bring good luck and we found 7 of them, so we're now expecting permanent sunshine until we depart Orkney.

We stayed at the Eday hostel which was very nice because no one else did and we had the whole place to ourselves. Very close to it we were lucky enough to see two short eared owls on our drive back from dinner (which we had pre ordered in the only make believe bar there is on the island) and from the big farm of our babysitter’s parent’s farm. There the kids were allowed to feed the newly born calves and we all got a tour of the whole farm! The last day of our stay, Jenny showed us (and 8 (!!) other tourists) around the prehistoric sites in the north of the island. This included the Stone of Setter, the highest standing stone in Orkney with 4.5m. There was also another Neolithic tomb like the one we also visited in Sanday, where you had to crawl to get in. It had four side chambers (now empty) where the bones were kept. There are so many of these tombs (or sometimes called Cairn from Gaelic) in Orkney but we can never resist crawling through the narrow passages. Of course it was another beautifully sunny day with incredible colours only spoilt by some late afternoon rain, but we had already got ready to leave the island to go back home.

So that was it, one more island to go in these holidays. We are leaving for North Ronaldsay on the 7:35 plane tomorrow morning.

In the meantime there was another article in the Swiss newspaper about our stay in Orkney (only in German).

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