It was nice and sunny in the morning. We left the car park and drove to the Ring of Brodgar.
This is a neolithic stone circle situated on a narrow bit of land between two lochs.
We walked round the site, then continued over to the shore of the loch and headed south. Not too far away is another neolithic site, the Standing Stones of Stenness. Both sites were pretty busy with coach parties and other visitors.
A little bit further over towards the other loch are the remains of some buildings called the Barnhouse Settlement.
We went into a nearby bird hide to have our lunch. There weren't too many birds to see but Oscar had a look anyway.
We could see the famous Maeshowe burial mound in the distance, but we hadn't managed to get tickets for it, it's booked up well in advance.
We drove on to Finstown, and went for a walk that included one of the few bits of mature woodland on Orkney.
We got to a little lochan that had the remains of a crannog on it, a building built offshore for defensive purposes with a causeway to it..
We looked on the map for some of the many archaeological sites you can visit free of charge on Orkney, there are so many of them. Rennibister Earth House is an underground room that's been discovered in a farmyard, that was probably used for storage.
Next we climbed up a hill to a burial mound called Cuween Hill Chambered Cairn.
At the top of the hill were a lot of piles of stone, not sure of their history.
Our parking spot for the night was at the side of the road at Scapa Beach, just south of Kirkwall.
For dinner we had root vegetable curry with naan bread.
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