Day in Pierowall

Pierowall Harbour is a good place to wait out a blow. There are plenty of places to walk to near the harbour, and two shops that can supply almost anything you want. There were four visiting yachts including us, and room for at least another two, but it is not a big harbour and the many of the fishing boats moor up outside, which is nearly as sheltered as inside. The ferry waiting room on the older arm of the harbour has the toilets and shower, which  is a bit of a walk from the pontoon. There is only one shower, but its wet room size rather than a shower cubicle, with a nice long bench, shelf, hooks and hairdryer; and its free.

After a morning spent chatting to Jill and Dylan Winter who were moored up next to us, Julian and I had lunch at the Haff Yok Cafe then went for a walk. The wind was whistling round, but being southerly felt much warmer than last week! Noltland castle is a rear fortress of a place, but never finished; well worth the visit though!

We headed next for the Knowe of Queena Howe, an un-presented Broch site, and did reach it, but got distracted by the sight of waves crashing on the beach right by it. It started to rain, and the grass was long and very wet, so before long our shoes and trousers were soaked through. It was a relief to go onto the sand at Grobust, then into the Links of Noltland prehistoric settlement. This is an active dig, and the wet senior archaeologist showed us around.

It looked a lot like Scara Brae, but apparently the occupation goes into the Bronze Age. The first “hut” was bigger than the later ones, and surrounded by a well built wall quite close to it. It looked a little like the Mid Howe Broch in its spacing of walls, but with over 2,000 years between times of construction there is unlikely to be much direct connection except for the available building materials. Very interesting to see a dig in action though.

After that it was on to Quoygrew to see a Viking age farmstead. By then we were both very wet!

Ten minutes after we got back to the road the sun came out, and we squelched back to the boat in bright sun shine.