July 25, 2019
Kirkwall
The ferry crossing from John o'Groats to Burwick was pretty uneventful. Ferry is streching the term a bit. In reality it is a tourist boat and an overpriced one at that.
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Once off the boat the first thing we encountered was St Mary's Church. Not a window in sight and if it wasn't for the cemetery it might be confused with a barn.
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It was an easy and relaxed ride to St Margaret's Hope, the first town on the road northwards. Here we stopped for lunch at a food stall on the main road before heading into the town to buy some groceries because we thought we would be camping just a few miles further north
The campsite we were hoping for didn't exist and there were no options for wild camping, this being the main road up to Kirkwall. So all we could do was to push on. The weather had turned cold and a strong wind was blowing from the south-east so there was no point in stopping. We did take time to look at the four Churchill Barriers built to defend Scapa Flow after the sinking of HMS Royal Oak at the start of the second world war and also a brief look at the Italian Chapel built by Italian PoWs who were used to construct the barriers.
Then it was on to Kirkwall. A bit of a slog with the traffic getting pretty busy. The campsite is unexciting and located in the middle of the city next to a busy road and leisure center but has the best facilities we have encountered on this trip so far. We will probably spend two nights here and get some tourist stuff done.
Today's ride: 39 km (24 miles)
Total: 2,543 km (1,579 miles)
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