Scotland Day 6: Stanes! Stanes Everywhere!

  A much better of a morning as we got ready to leave Archiestown.  I really like this little town and would not mind visiting it again at some point.  Charlie even let me pet him after we checked out.

  I made sure to have both colors of yarn with me because we had about a three hour drive to get to the ferry we had vouchers for.  There were also a lot of pheasants standing on or next to the road.  They are pretty but kind of dumb.  Tank would love chasing them, they are everywhere.  We had to slow down and go around them, other birds get out of the way when you get within their sight and they see you approaching, but these would glance over and meander away.

  As we were traveling to the ferry and looking at possible stopping places for interesting things I kept thinking that I wanted to keep an eye out for yarn shops.  The only problem with this is that the prices at the mill would be hard to beat.  I know the ones I got at the mill were at least half the price I would have seen at my local shops.  I also don’t know if any of the prices near me are because they are imported goods, or just because it is an actual store.

  As we were going Heather spotted something on the map that was the Hill o’Many Stanes.  I was excited because I take more pictures of sheep.  These had babies with them!  I wished I had had a bit more zoom, but I think they were cute.

  The stones were not easily visible from the road, so we had to take another winding one laned road to them.  They are 27 stones just standing there on the side of a small hill in a fan pattern.  Very perplexing and mysterious.

  On our way to lunch we passed the Carn Liath off of A9.  It was a fun looking thing.  A ring of rocks with a doorway and grass on the top.  No one deemed it something that we needed to stop for, but I am glad that I got to see it.

  We stopped for lunch at John O’Groats which is one of the ends of the End to Enders.  It is a popular thing for motorcyclists to take pictures of their bikes a both ends within 24 hours.  It seems like a lot of cyclists also like going from one end to the other, they just tend to take a bit longer.  While Bill thinks it would be fun to do it on a motorcycle, he also doesn’t want to try it in the 24 hour limit.

  The Castle and Gardens of Mey were the only ones actually owned by the Queen Mother.  She had many places to stay at, but this was the only one she owned.  She owned some tacked tacked-wellies so when it rained and she took her corgis out she would have traction going up the hill.

  There was also an animal center and I have to say that was my favorite part.  In pens there were a bunch of different animals.  A few kinds of chicken, sheep, a mule, pigs, and a few kinds of geese to name a few.  In the barn there were some lambs, birds, a rabbit, and eggs incubating.  I was so happy to get to see the lambs up close!

  The cage of chipmunks really threw us off though.

  Winding country roads are not the best to try and fix knitting on.  It seems that at some point I decided that one of the rows of slipped stitches didn’t really need to be slipped and I would just work it like all the other stitches on either side of it.  The front looks a fine and though the back looks a bit funny I am only on row 12, so I am not too worried about 

it.  They are long rows and to completely fix it, I would have to go back to the set-up row.  There was another one where I was slipping until about four rows ago, then I decided to just work those plain too.  So I need to remember to pay more attention when working the wrong side row.

  Dunnet Bay was another fun detour on our way to find the ferry.  We had allotted a lot of time to get there, so all these stops were only sort of planned in.  There were a bunch of sand worms and the sand dried out a little as you stepped on it and then rehydrated when you stepped off of it.

  We got to the ferry nice and early but still weren’t first in line.  Someone who arrived after us checked in first and queued up before we did.  The vouchers said that we needed to turn them in and get tickets in their office that was about 18 miles from the actual ferry.  A quick call told us that we just had to show our voucher to the person when we checked in before getting in line.  We had enough trouble finding the ferry, who knows what would have happened if we had to find another office as well.

  I had to borrow Heather’s sweatshirt because my suitcase fit the best in the car with the zipper facing inward.  The boat was pretty windy and got really chilly because of it.  It was a fun ride though and I even got some hot chocolate to help fight off the cold.  I am looking forward to when we do it again, but I am not in a hurry to leave.

  A lot of where we are on the island of Orkney closes fairly early.  The only place we found to try and eat at was an Indian place called Dil Se.  We weren’t the only ones in there for that same reason.  Luckily they had some good food, though I wish it had been a bit spicier.

  There are currently some guys driving their modified cars around town again and again, but hopefully they will get bored before I want to go to bed.