De avonturen van Draakje en zijn vrienden: 06/10/18

Today our trip took us from Dunnet head to Wick via John o’Groat. First we stopt at this old little harbour to spot some seals. We tried to make pictures but they were to far away. Main thing is that we saw them.

Watch the seal, just left of the dark rock

A spare 4 cylinder engine?

At the slipway close to the seals

After the harbour we went along until we passed a sign of castle Mey. We decided to visit the castle’s garden and animals. We skipped the castle itself because we have seen enough classic furniture for one holiday.

The castle’s walled garden

Just beautiful

The walled garden was beautiful and the outside of the castle was exactly as a castle should look like. I think the queen also comes here for holidays, or at least has something to do with the cattle here. They breed price angus cows here. We had some piece of one on the bbq tonight and I must say it was delicious.

After castle Mey we drove to John o’Groats, the most north western point of the UK. And believe it or not, there was this rally exposition of classic cars. Naturally we had to stop and have a look. They even had the Anglica from Harry Potter standing there.

1947 versus 1967

Ralley 1967

Straight from the Cars movie

After this nice surprise we drove to our final stop of the day, Wick. There we had the Angus steak and a little beer tasting with one of the Orkney beers, the “Skull Splitter”. The name made us worry a little, but the tast was actually very refreshing and nice. Hopefully it won’t make his name worth fully tomorrow.

Skull Splitter - Good night

After al the history the day before, today it was time for something else of which there is planty of on this island: tasting booze.

We started the day with a visit at the Highland Park distillery. In the shop be bought a nice bottle of 12 year old, along with some glasses. We didn’t do a tour but instead walked along the premises ourself. Highland Park is a large distillery, I think the largest we visited so far. But still beautiful and authentic.

The fire place where cole and peat is burned

A warehouse full of treasure

Warehouse after warehouse

The second visit of the day was at the Scapa distillery, we wanted to do a tour there, but is was full. So instead we bought two bottles of different Whisky to comfort ourselfs, and a really lovely glass pipette with a little glass angel on top. Really necessary for good whisky tasting 😇.

Just in front of the distillery was this sign, no explanation needed.

But as it has a wineglass on the sign, we guess it doesn’t apply to whisky.

Next stop on our list was the Italian Chapel, a chapel built by itallian prisoners of war in the WWII.

They were in this prison camp on Orkney and wanted a place of worship, so they build this church in two connected half round barns. Really amazing.

Everything was built from scrap materials

The imprisoned archtect Domenico Chiocchetti stayed after all prisoners were released to finish this font built from cement

Increadible art and craft work from scrap material

Every piece hand built by the prisoners

Domenico Chiocchetti himself came back a few years ago to help restore the chapel.

It’s completely made out of concrete and stuff they found or was leftover while working on the Churchill defense of the harbour.

Just next to the Italian Chappel was the Orkney wine company seated, so ofcourse we had to pay them a visit as well. After tasting some of there “wines”, non of them have grapes in it, only local found fruits, plants and veggies, we bought two bottles. One Tatties wine, made out of potatoes and aged in a whisky barrel, and a wine made of elderberries. Both very nice.

We followed our route further up to St. Margarets Hope were the ferry back to Scotland was leaving. Because we had some time left before boarding we went into the center for a lunch. There was this lovely lunchroom/ second hand store/ market where we ate. I had the homemade pumkin carrot soup and Tanguy the ploughmans lunch. We ordered some mocktails to go with the food.

Our Mocktails - very nice

After lunch it was time to back to Scotland by ferry.

Also the roof with solar panels looks good

Back on Scottisch ground we drove to Dunnet Head, the most northern place of the UK mainland. A friend of ours used to live there and we promised to make some pictures.