Wednesday on Stronsay was devoted to a walk round part of the coast and visits to a seal hide and a bird hide, beside a small loch. The seal hide was just a hut with a couple of windows badly placed to see anything, let alone seals, of which there were none around anyway. The picture above is from our earlier walk, of dozens of seals alarmed at our approach diving into the water with all the panache of a triathlon. The bird hide was a well built item, which we found after a long trek along the edge of a ploughed field.

Unfortunately it was wrongly oriented for any decent sightings of birds, as the sun shone directly on the loch in front of the hide, blinding us completely. We gave up after sighting a possible shoveler female, and went to Whitehall village to check if there were any possible parking areas close by the public loos in the hostel. Every spot was overlooked by houses, so we decided just to stay at the community centre for our last night. We went into the little fish mart cafe and had a bacon roll and chips for lunch for a change. Then in the afternoon we drove up to the one peninsula we had not so far visited, parked and walked down to a pebbly beach to find a spot to sit for a while. It was difficult to find anywhere out of the wind, so we turned round and headed back to the community centre and set up for the night.

We have still not risked putting up the roof again since our experience of the first couple of nights on Orkney. As a result we have been warmer and the van has not rocked about quite so much in the wind, while we are parked.

Stronsay has so little provision for tourists that we reckon the local economy is doing very nicely thank you out of agriculture so it doesn't need the tourist pound. No campsite on this island, the hotel has a closed sign on it, there are hardly any b and bs, and we did not see any other campervans. Not only that, there didn't seem to be much going on for the 250 inhabitants of the island either, as the community centre stayed dark and empty all three nights we were there. No yoga, line dancing, amdram, youth club, nothing. Wouldn't happen in Ardfern!

One peculiarity is the monastery on the island just next to the ferry pier, with real monks, and mass said every morning in the small chapel near the pier. The other day when we were investigationg that part of the island, I stopped the van to let a man cycling towards us wearing a black soutane. As he drew level and my window was down he stopped, and asked 'Did you want to see me?' I didn't know how to say no without hurting his feelings, so just explained awkwardly that I stopped so as not to knock him off his bike. Somewhat relieved, he cycled on. It left me wondering about the life of a priest, always at the beck and call of the faithful, who always want something, advice or,whatever. Must be a difficult job.

On Thursday morning we were up early and in excellent weather got the ferry back to Kirkwall via Eday. We watched a number of vehicles reversing on to the ferry. Such fun! So unlike Calmac ferries, these Northlink ferries. Full of tractors, trailers, bits of agricultural machinery, trucks full of fertiliser. A really agricultural part of the world here, growing as far as we could see grass for feed and silage, for beef cattle and sheep.

Back on the mainland we drove first to Dounby to fill up with petrol again, then to Stromness where we had booked a hard standing pitch with electric. The campsite was packed, and another motorhome was attached to our electric outlet. Expletives deleted. This is a shambolic campsite, the management is hopeless and chaotic. Apparently the warden had okayed the motorhome pitching on our pitch, despite the fact he or she must have known it was booked. So we set up on the one next to it, and have prepared ourselves to repel boarders if necessary. Only one night!

As we were wild camping on Stronsay we could not use our fan heater, but for the first time this trip we did not feel we needed it. It is definitely getting warmer. We watched the Hamnavoe leave for her afternoon trip to Scrabster in perfect sunlight. Another lovely day.