Sunday 9th May 1999

Getting up for breakfast for Martin and Sara was a little more difficult today! Their B+B had another guest, Jordan, an American who was travelling around Scotland for three weeks. Another cooked breakfast stoked us up for a day sightseeing with Keith and Gill who had their car with them.

Keith and Gill were keen to visit the Tomb of the Eagles on South Romsey, so this was our first port of call. The weather was windy and drizzly on our arrival, so we wrapped up in waterproofs and walking boots or wellies and headed up to the remains of the Bronze-Age dwelling. There, a sweet old man in bright waterproofs gave us the fascinating history of the place and pointed out the different functions of the remains. From there we then walked on to the tomb itself which was on the top of some very windswept cliffs.

Getting into the tomb was very amusing. We had to put on knee pads and then use a flat trolley and pull ourselves through a narrow tunnel into the interior of the tomb. This was a fascinating place, and we all rolled ourselves back out "Keith-style" pleased that we had visited the place. "Keith-style" meant lying on our backs and going "Wheeeeee!" as we rolled back to the outside world on the trolley! A brisk walk along the windy coastline brought us back to the farmhouse at the start, where the old man's daughter was giving an interesting talk on the history of the site, and also giving us various archiological artifacts to handle, that had been found around the site. Karen and Rod from the Reef Rats were there, just about to set out on the trip up to the dwelling site, so we said "Hi" and that we would see them later at Alastair's.

Back in the car and with the weather improving, we stopped at a couple of vantage points on the way back north towards Kirkwall, and then headed out on the Stromness road in search of more history. Keith was zooming along the roads and overtaking everything in sight whilst saying "Look at meeee!" in a Goons-style voice. This amused us no end. This mad driving meant that we missed the turning to Maes Howe, so we decided to do it on the way back rather than turning back. We did however spot the turning to the Ring of Brodgar and stopped there for a look and more photos.

Then it was on to Alastair's for lunch, as he had made an open invitation to all the visiting Octopush players to drop into his house which was a stone's throw away from the Ring of Brodgar. Karen and her family were already there enjoying the soup, bread, cheese and pizza that had been kindly laid on for us all. Not long after our arrival, the first load of Edinburgh players arrived, their one hire car being used as a shuttle service for them. A leisurely couple of hours was spent enjoying the sun streaming into the conservatory and chatting, watching the video that Alastair had taken the previous day and being amused by the menagery of the Skene household, which included a very exotic red, black and white snake.

We finally managed to drag ourselves away from Alastair's in order to fit in the rest of our planned itinerary, especially as the weather had cheered up somewhat. We headed out to Skara Brae to see the old beautifully-preserved Stone-Age village. The visitor centre was very "hands on" and provided many different activities, so that visitors could really get a feel for the place, as well as a full-sized reconstruction of "House Seven", the best-preserved of the Stone-Age houses.

///

The actual village site had a beautiful coastline backdrop of a sandy beach and blue sea. A local shetland pony also looked on and wanted attention - although probably more in the hope that he'd be fed rather than to meet us!

Wowed by Skara Brae we headed back towards Alastair's and from there to Maes Howe. Unfortunately we got there to find that we had just missed the last guided tour of the day, so we decided to get up early the next morning in order to be there for their first tour of the day at 9.30am. Martin wanted a copy of the video of the previous day's Octopush tournament that we had watched earlier, so we went back to Alastair's. While we were there the Edinburgh gang rang to see if Alastair and Chris, his wife, would like to join them for a meal in Kirkwall. We decided to tag along too and got them to include us on their booking at the Queens Hotel for 8pm.

We said our aux revoirs and headed back to Kirkwall, dropped stuff off at Sara and Martin's B+B and then went down to Gill and Keith's B+B which was a stone's throw away from the hotel. A very nice meal was had by all, which was a lovely way to get to know some of the other players. 11pm saw us head to our respective B+Bs for bed as we had an early start in the morning.