I wonder if anyone has any suggestions for where to go and what to look for if one happened to have a couple of free days on Orkney at this time of year?
(I’d have asked @dejayM directly … but I’ve managed to lose his email address.)
No doubt Dejay will see your post and respond but he also has this project:
NATURAL REASONS TO VISIT ORKNEYIt would depend on your top interest. and whether you are on a cycle or in a car.
I’d certainly suggest a tent for sleeping and to go home knackered and sated.
But visitors try too hard to see everything and fail to feel the place
For nature and beaches, the Southern Isles via Pentland Ferries
For culture and prehistory then based in Kirkwall from the airport with car-hire
Do not plan an internal ferry trip in the time you have
Tell me more. my eddress is in the project above
Interested in nature of all sorts. Will be on a bike with no tent; accommodation booked in Kirkwall. Day on Hoy and day cycling around mainland are definites (and the up-front reason for the visit.) Hoping to spend a couple of days iSpotting before the ferry whisks me south again.
OK…the cycle day on Hoy should be Rackwick and Drawfie Stane, the Museum at Lyness and the Naval War cemetery. But you will have planned it already, though might you know you can go on one ferry and return on another?
You need OS Explorer 462 (Hoy) and 463 Mainland.
A cycle day on Mainland: It is all too easy to plan too much and the day spent in range from Kirkwall might be enough. I know of good places half an hour cycle to and from K’wall.
Would this be the right time of year for Mertensia (oyster plant)?
Absolutely (thistle?) but you could lose HOURS looking for it
This is on his cycle route