Kirkwall; Tuesday, 08 August, 2006

With a hearty breakfast inside me I headed out to the bus station and caught the bus out to Tingwall. Tingwall is the landing point for the ferry to Rousay, Eglisay and Wyre the closest of the Northern islands to the mainland.

There are tours of the island on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays during the summer and I had pre-booked onto the Tuesday tour. The tour takes you the whole way around the island on the single road that runs round the edge. The entire route round the island is about 15 miles, and the tour lasts just over 5 hours, so you can imagine there is lots of time to take in the scenery and the sights.

There are lots of stops around the island for photo opportunities including where the seals usually lie out on the beach (though there were very few today) and at the many archaeological sights around the island. There are 163 recorded sights on the island, ranging from Viking back to Neolithic, with lots of cairns and tombs, broch's and other dwellings. Many of the remains you can see are older that the Pyramids and with the number of sites that there are, you can understand why Rousay is also known as the Egypt of the north.

One of the major sights is Midhowe Broch and Cairn. The burial tomb is one of the largest and a spectacular structure. The next-door Broch (which is about 3000 years younger, but still just scraping into BC!) is also spectacular with hand carved ditches and channels in the rock it is built on as further protection.

A large number of Viking (and earlier) remains are along the next mile or so of coast line, and a pleasant (or at least I assume it would be when it’s not pouring down) walk along the shore line takes you past these, many marked with information boards. The entire walk from leaving the mini-bus, walking down (and it is definitely down!) the 500m or so to the Broch, looking around and walking along the shore walk takes a little under two hours and as we emerged onto the main road again from the shore front we were met by the minibus to continue the tour.

The final couple of stops of the day are at three more cairns along the southern part of the island. The most interesting of the three is Tavershoe Tuick which is a two tier tomb. There is a lower tomb which has its own access and an upper tomb.

After looking around all the sites we were dropped of back at the ferry terminal with enough time for a bite to eat and a drink in the restaurant/bar before the ferry back to Tingwall and then the bus back to Kirkwall for a change into some dry clothes!