Highlands and Orkneys

TENTATIVE ITINERARY	NIGHTSTOP
DAY ONE - Saturday
Our tour departs from Inverness at 09.00. Participants should travel up on the day prior from Glasgow/Edinburgh. The train journey is itself a somewhat spectacular ride through the Highlands. We'll then enjoy a journey through Europe's last great wilderness and the stark beauty of it all is quite simply astounding. Highlights include the Dornoch and Cromarty Firths and the tidal expanse of Loch Fleet where we are likely to watch seals. You'll see historic sites such as the Dunrobin Castle and its planned gardens; Golspie's astonishing 90' high statue of the First Duke of Sutherland, notorious for the Clearances in the Highlands in the 19th century and some of the small fishing and crafting settlements of this remote region. We'll arrive at Scotland's northern most tip, to catch our ferry to the Orkney Islands at 19.00, arriving on the island at 20.30. The ferry ride across is naturally stunning in the context of the late evening setting sun.	Orkney Kirkwall or Stromness
DAY TWO - Sunday
We have two full days to explore the delights of these islands - and there's something here for everybody. Kirkwall is a beautiful old town with many interesting historical sights including St Magnus Cathedral, the Earl's Palace and the Bishop's Palace, Tankerness House Museum, the Wireless Museum with its huge unique collection of wartime communications equipment and wireless sets, and an original pedestrianised main street. It is perhaps for its astounding archaelogical sites that mainland Orkney is most renowned. We'll visit the most important places with Skara Brae being top of our list. Built before the Pyramids, Stonehenge and the Great Wall of China, the ten houses that can be seen today were occupied from about 3100 to 2500 BC. Historians believe that the site was gradually abandoned as the island's community developed and people's needs changed. Over the centuries it was covered with sand and remained untouched until a winter storm blew up in 1850, thus bringing the Stone Age into the modern era. Other sites we can potentially visit, according to group interest, can include a selection form the stone circle of the Ring of Brodgar, the Stones of Stenness, Maes Howe, walk over the Atlantic to the Brough of Birsay, Broch of Gurness, the Rennibister Earth House and Unstan Cairn.	Orkneys as above
DAY THREE - Monday
Continuing our explorations today, we will see Scapa Flow, a huge natural harbour. As well as being the resting-place of HMS Royal Oak, whose wreck is marked by a single buoy, it is also the graveyard of the German High Seas Fleet. Then there's the Italian Chapel, originally a couple of old Nissen huts, decorated in imaginative style by Italian Prisoners of War. The chapel stands as a reminder of the unfailing faith of the Italians and their ingenious use of scavenged material. You could hold the head of a 5,000 year old stone age man (and his wife)) at the Tomb of the Eagles. Of course, we must make time for the rugged natural beauty of the island. Marwick Head and its 200-foot drop straight down into the foaming sea. Many birds nest in the nooks and crannies of the cliffs. Yesnaby Cliffs, formed by layer upon layer of the Middle Old Red Sandstone that makes up most of Orkney, these cliffs are a warm, ochre colour with fossil "horse-tooth" stromatolites, blue-green algae that grew in the lake that covered Orkney 350 million years ago. On the nearby moorlands, you may see some tiny mauve flowers with yellow centres, rare Scottish primroses found only in Orkney, Shetland and Caithness. If you look south, you might just see the outline of The Old Man of Hoy, the much-photographed sea stack off the Orkney coast. We board our ferry after dinner, sleeping aboard in comfort. The ferry doesn't actually leave until the following morning but boarding now helps maximise your sightseeing time.	Overnight on ferry Orkneys
DAY FOUR - Tuesday
Our ferry departs at 06.30 AM allowing early risers a wonderful prospect of enjoying a 90-minute coastal 'cruise' watching for birds and sea life in early morning sun. There are not too many places in the World that one can honestly write are unspoilt, or undiscovered, but Caithness is surely one of them. This is true Back-Roads Touring country and we promise you some more amazing sights and unforgettable experiences! Here, precariously hugging wind-swept cliffs are literally hundreds of castle ruins, connected in many cases to the warrior clans Sinclair and Gunn. In the northerly town of Wick we may visit the Heritage Centre and learn how people have survived in this incredible terrain of peat bog and over the centuries. Then there's Dunnet Head. This most northerly point on mainland Britain rises some 100 metres above sea level. The Dunnet Head lighthouse was built in 1831 by Robert Stevenson, grandfather of the author Robert Louis Stevenson. It was automated in 1989. On a clear day the view point allows the visitor to see as far as Cape Wrath to the west and enjoy a stunning panoramic view across to John O'Groats and Duncansby Head, while to the south lies Morven, the highest mountain in Caithness. Between John O'Groats and Wick we'll enjoy time stop at one of the remarkable and spectacular cliff such as the famed Stacks of Duncansby. It's a dream for bird watchers as we invariably find puffin. We'll be returning to Inverness by late afternoon, allowing for evening connections (16.55) back to Glasgow or Edinburgh. Perhaps you'd like to stay-a-while and enjoy time in this Highland capital, and take various day tours offered to the North-West Highlands and Aberdeenshire. This tour links with the 6-day Western Isles tour that departs from Glasgow on a Sunday morning completing on a Thursday, allowing you Friday to independently explore Inverness before going to the Orkneys. On selected dates, you can link Orkneys with our 3-day North-West Wilderness tour with departures marked with an *.
NOTE: . Additional pre and post tour accommodation: Twin from £65 pp, B&B / Single £75

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Tour Code	Depart Inverness	Return Inverness
ORK	Saturday	Tuesday
ORK 01	09 May	12 May
*ORK 02	23 May	26 May
ORK 03	06 Jun	09 Jun
*ORK 04	20 Jun	23 Jun
ORK 05	04 Jul	07 Jul
*ORK 06	29 Aug	01 Sep
ORK 07	12 Sep	15 Sep
*ORK 08	26 Sep	29 Sep