Last week we hired a car, loaded our camping equipment into it, and took the ferry over to Hoy, so we could go and camp at Rackwick Bay, where we have fond memories of camping in years gone by. I remember bringing Cathy and Abby here during our cycling holiday on Orkney when they were still at primary school. That time we stayed at the Rackwick Hostel, a small building which used to be the local school, once upon a time.

We landed at Lyness, and had a look round the wartime museum and cemetery, and noticed there is now a memorial to those who lost their lives in the Arctic convoys to Archangel and Murmansk. See photo!

Lyness is now the hub for a positive frenzy of renewable energy in Orkney. Sea-turbines, wave generation systems, all sorts of devices which aim to use the power of the sea to generate clean green electricity, you will find them here, on test somewhere. We watched large parts of turbines being unloaded from a freighter on to trailers.

Then we drove north and headed for Rackwick, where everything had changed, it seemed. Fences had popped up, tracks had 'No vehicle access' signposted beside them, and camping was not possible from a car in the grounds of the bothy by the beach, without carting all the stuff over a mile across the rough ground behind the beach. The spot we had camped on years ago was now bumpy and boggy, impossibly uneven. We were crestfallen, to say the least. The old hostel was firmly closed, also.

So after some debate we decided to flycamp wherever we could find a spot, and we did, just by the Rackwick Burn, with a handy parking spot opposite which didn't block the passing place adjacent to it. So we stayed for two brilliant days, walking round the high path towards the Old Man of Hoy, and enjoying the fantastic location, which no yachtie I know would dare to go near by sea. It is a huge, thundering bay, where the tide rumbles millions of small rocks and boulders at high tide, and it is open to the south and the fierce tidal currents of the Pentland Firth. In the distance you can see the mainland of Scotland, on a clear day.

LIstening to the forecast, which was for rain, we decided to come back to the boat one day early, but not before Ju had a chance to birdwatch in the reserve close to Ward Hill, and I had a go at fly-fishing on a small loch. I was no danger to the fish, however, as when I checked the fly at the end of my session I noticed that the hook on it had disappeared!

The next morning we used the car for a quick trip up to Yesnaby, on the mainland coast, and visited the site of a broch.