Day 8- August 18

Before leaving Orkney this morning, we made a stop at the Tomb of the Eagles, a neolithic tomb that was uncovered by a farmer in his fields. It turns out he called the government about it, but they never sent someone to excavate it so it remained his property and he ended up excavating it himself. It's a very unusual circumstance in that he technically owns all the items he found. He donated the bodies to museums and such, but he kept 3 skulls and a bunch of artefacts for the small museum he set up as well. We were allowed to touch and hold these several thousand year old treasures, which was very fortunate but also very strange. Then we walked about a mile along the cliff edge to the tomb itself. To be honest, I was very put off by it. These bodies had been buried here undisturbed for so many years, only to have some farmer dig them up and remove them all. Now it is simply an empty stone room. It just didn't seem right to me. Even so, it is very remarkable that these sorts of things are so commonplace in Orkney that they can be treated so casually.

We left the Tomb and headed for the ferry. It was an easy trip back to the mainland. We first went just down the road to John O' Groats, a town that claims to be the northernmost point of the Scottish mainland, but as I said in my previous post, this is not actually the case. It's really just a tourist trap that tried to charge me for taking a picture of the view! No joke! Too bad for them, I just took my photo and walked away! From there, we traveled south along the eastern coast. We stopped at the site of a clearance village, where some Scots were forced to live in the late 1800s- early 1900s when their landlords decided to kick them off their property and use it to farm sheep instead. They were forced to make a living on very barren soil under very harsh conditions. There was little left to see of the village itself, but the story was sad. In the town of Golspie, we all ordered fish and chips from a shop and ate them outside in the park for dinner. Absolutely delicious and quite the gut bomb! As for accommodation, we stayed at a castle tonight! It's called Carbisdale Castle and apparently it was donated by a wealthy owner to be used as a hostel. It was like staying in a museum, with a gallery of statues, beautiful artwork, and vast staircases. Everyone met up in one of the common rooms to drink (more Strongbow!) and play Uno. Beth and I got a kick over how the Australian's call it "you-no".