The clue for this one is in the title. It started as a planned one night away, flying from Kirkwall and spending a night at the Bird Observatory. There will be more about the ornithology side of things shortly but for now let me remain focused and talk about the journey.

Kirkwall airport is an amazing little place and the only place I’ve ever retrieved my own bag after checking it in either to add things or take things out! Thankfully the main item being that I had forgotten my phone charger, having debated with myself that we would only be away for one night and I could manage without it (but little did I know) I’m glad I went back to the van for it!

The plane is only a little 8 seater

And , as you can see from the picture, we obviously had ample leg and head room but some spectacular views along the way.

Having arrived safely on the plane we quickly became fog bound and are now on our third night on this island and hoping to get the ferry back to Kirkwall on Tuesday as all the flights are now full. We shouldn’t be surprised by this, none of our holidays are complete without some kind of delay or weather related incident. In fact one of our first family holidays to Orkney (note again not the Orkney’s please) was significantly impacted by the wind (meteorological). We were camping at the time and got caught in the tail end of a hurricane and I will never forget standing outside the tent (tethered to the car no, that’s the tent not me, although we have seen similar experiences with people in the form of stag initiations in Kirkwall!). As a lonely police officer drove past, in slow motion, and just looked pitifully at me so the impact of the weather gods for the last three days hasn’t really been a surprise.. What an opportunity though to discover some more places and we have literally explored every inch of this island on foot. We’ve walked over thirty miles in the last couple of days and I’m sure I’m about three inches shorter than I was!

There are only around 60 people who live on this island we’ve met a few of them! I even have Chris (the airport co-ordinator’s) number in my phone, I think in the end he was just pleased to see the back of us! Maybe he hasn’t! but hopefully by the time you read this we will at least back on the mainland and hopefully on the way to Ullapool and our Hebridean adventure.

So why did we come here? Not for the birds but for the sheep, and in so many ways that sounds so much worse. Emma wanted to see the North Ronaldsay sheep as they are quite notorious for eating sea weed and living on the beach. In fact the whole island has a perimeter wall built around it to stop the sheep from getting off the beach.. here’s sone photos..

Back to the birds. It’s fair to say that the bird observatory has a certain type of resident and they like to talk about birds and what they have seen a lot! It’s taken me a huge amount of restraint to stop myself from saying all the rude names of birds I can think of but I think it’s best to leave that one there!

We’ve seen other wildlife as well..

A highlight had to be the mother hen who seemed to have adopted a brood of ducklings.

And today the sun actually came out for a couple of hours..

This is also the lighthouse I mentioned in an earlier blog..

Finally the advantage of being here for longer has meant an opportunity to explore some of the abandoned crofts (of which there are plenty but mainly just as empty shells). I’m going to add a few pictures.

There was something very sad and very poignant about this man’s life and it kind of puts things into perspective a bit. There is a lot in life that we take for granted and a lot that causes us vexation when really it doesn’t matter and somehow it all works out fine in the end.. and that’s where I’ll leave this for now in the hope of getting somewhere a bit further south tomorrow!

It is now tomorrow and here’s the latest update. Having had a last few hours to explore the sun came out, just for a short while, boy was it pretty.

And then, as quickly as it had gone the fog came back.

And after an hour of watching the weather change again and seeing everything craned on and off the boat..

We set sail again on glorious sunshine. Turns out that, in true island style, my airport friend also works at the pier for the twice weekly ferry! I did say to him that if he even thought of telling us that the boat had been cancelled I would push him in the sea.. thankfully he didn’t say anything and I managed not to get arrested..

So we spent the journey whiling away the hours chatting to the people we had met on the island including, as we discovered, a couple that live in our town, having moved there in July last year, it really is a small world!! Talking of worlds, North Ronaldsay now already feels a long way away, we miss it already. None the less, here we are..

Another home for the night ready to make it back across the Pentland Firth in the morning and on to the next stage of our adventure.