The changing view - part 1

Having moved house recently I'm still missing the views I had previously. These were all taken in the last week or so before I left Orkney.

 

 

I do have some pretty nice views from my new place too, thank goodness!

The Reaper (but not the grim one)

I came home from work one night recently to find this moored practically outside my front door.

She's the Reaper, a Fifie herring drifter owned by the Scottish Fisheries Museum. She was built in Sandhaven, just along the coast from here, in 1902. I last saw her 9 years ago, in Kirkwall.

Needless to say, it didn’t take long until I was aboard for a look!

My class were very intrigued by this photo. They’re struggling to believe that my house doesn’t have a chimney – and then I show them a photo of a boat with a chimney!!

BBQ kippers & oatcakes for tea...

It was interesting to see below the waterline as the tide went fully out.

She dwarfed the other boats in the harbour. This yacht looked really quite big when it was sitting on its trailer by the harbour, and still looked a decent size in the harbour ... until the Reaper moored next to her!

The Reaper ‘sailed’ with the tide at 11pm. Unfortunately there wasn’t enough wind for her to actually go out under sail, but it was nice seeing her anyway.

This photo is rather blurry as it was very dark so I was having to use a long exposure on the camera to capture anything at all.

Off she heads,  Fraserburgh next stop...

I saw her leave Fraserburgh a couple of days later. Sadly I wasn’t in time to see her sail out of the harbour, as it would have been great to see her in full sail at close quarters. I did manage to catch her sailing off into the sunset though (well, it wasn’t actually sunset, but I’m sure you get the idea.)

Roseness

After visiting the Scottish lighthouse museum a few weeks ago (which I will get round to blogging about eventually, I'm sure) I was inspired to visit a local lighthouse I'd never been to before - Roseness.

It was a lovely walk on a sunny, but cold, day. The coastline is lovely, with great views towards Copinsay, and lots of evidence of otters in the area. If you've got sharp eyes, you might spot some kayakers too!

The Roseness gloup, while not being the most impressive one I've visited, is still well worth a look.

The coastline is really interesting, with lots of rock stacks, which had a lot of fulmars on them.

A bit further one there's some sort of structure very visible on the skyline.

When I got up to it, this is what I saw. I'm not sure what it is, and as far as I know it hasn't been excavated.

A little further on again and I was at the old beacon. I've heard that it was an early form of lighthouse - a navigation beacon, built in 1867. There's also another story locally that it was built around the turn of the century to commemorate a shipwreck and lost sailors. Either way, it's beautifully built, with a cross on top which has been designed to look like a cross from all directions. The beacon certainly stands out for miles.

There's obviously been a ladder to the top at one time, as the rusted remains testify to.

It was gifted to Orkney Islands Council in 1995. Previously it was in the ownership of the Northern Lighthouse Board, who also have a modern lighthouse nearby.

The modern lighthouse is a 'prefab' - bolted together in sections. The original NLB 'modern' lighthouse here was cast iron, built in 1904/5, and is now in the Scottish lighthouse museum as an example of the newer light and lantern housing developed by David A Stevenson. I'm not sure what year it "came to the end of its useful life" (as the lighthouse museum puts it) and was replaced by the newer prefab which is there now.

The lighthouse stands out clearly against the low winter sun, but the modern beacon dwarfs it from a distance.

I'm really glad I've done this walk, but am now at a loss to work out why I've never done it before. I wonder how many other great walks and sights I've missed during my time in Orkney....

Glencoe

I've always loved the scenery around Glencoe and Rannoch Moor, since I was a wee girl. When I lived in Skye, we used to pass through there regularly whenever we went to visit family & friends. However, I've rarely been there in the past 11 years since I moved to Orkney, so in the October holidays I decided to drive the scenic route back to Orkney...

The drive was a lot longer this way, but it was well worth it.

Autumn colours

Yes, I know it's totally the wrong time of year for this, but I've been sorting out some photos I took in the October holidays.

I had a lovely trip "sooth" to visit family & friends, and also spent a few days just touring about taking in the scenery.

Killin

Red squirrel, Speyside

I had a very cold night camping at Grandtully!

Slalom kayakers, Grandtully

It was a great holiday, and makes me realise (yet again) just how many stunningly beautiful parts of Scotland there are. Maybe when I'm living on the mainland I'll have more opportunities for weekend trips to explore more.

Clear skies

The mirrie dancers (or merry dancers, northern lights or aurora borealis) have been quite active recently. Unfortunately the weather has conspired against getting good views of them a lot of the time, with cloudy skies and snowstorms, but Friday was a beautiful evening, albeit extremely cold, and I got some great views.

I moved around a bit taking photos, but it was so slippery with a very hard frost on top of a snowfall, that I was scared of falling and breaking my camera, so after a while I stationed myself at the door of the house.

Although it was mostly just a huge arc of colour, later in the evening there was a little more activity.

Eventually there was also some pinky colour, as well as the green, but it was fading by then, and the sky was also starting to cloud over.

Earlier it had been a beautifully clear, starry sky.

Orion over my house

Saturday morning was beautiful too - a hard frost, beautiful cloud formations, lots of seals on the skerries and eider ducks calling from the shore.

 I'm really going to miss this special spot when I move.