We had another day of sunshine and showers, but the sunshine happened at the right times again. Most of our visit to the Ring of Brodgar was dry, and the sun came out beautifully to show off the spectacular waves near the Brough of Birsay.
The Ring of Brodgar is one of the most visited sites on Orkney (Maes Howe is maybe as famous, but visiting now is only by booking in advance, with few slots available, so we didn’t get to make the visit). It is a very large circle of stones, and feels similar to Avebury in size, although the stones are a lot smaller than those at Avebury. However I really don’t think is has the impact of the Stones of Stenness; maybe this is just someone who has visited a very large number of megalithic sites commenting!
The car park was nowhere near full, but there were still plenty visitors to the site when we were there. We took the walk to the circle, and also walked back south east along the ness of Brodgar.
The weather made for some fairly dramatic views of the site.
There’s a ditch around the circle; Loch of Harray in the background.
The dig site on the Ness of Brodgar has now been covered; you can see bare earth in one of the fields where the dig took place, and a pile of old tyres in the corner which had been used to weight down the waterproof covering in the off season!
After visiting the Ring of Brodgar we had a coffee at the Skara Brae visitor centre (we went there on three days!) before heading to the far north west corner of Mainland, to the Brough of Birsay. On the island there are Pictish remains, and also Viking remains showing where the Vikings (Earl Thorfinn the Mighty, apparently) ruled the Orkney Islands from. There’s a causeway over to the island but the tide was over it when we were there. The winds made for some spectacular waves though!
