... in Orkney at the moment! The St Magnus Festival, the Orkney annual arts festival, is currently in full swing, more of that later.
Today is the summer solstice, sadly rather cloudy so I'm not sure there will be much of a sunset and certainly not much sun worshipping going on! However, I'll celebrate it anyway with a walk to the shell beach this evening in the hope of seeing the sun setting!
It's the anniversary of the scuttling of the German Fleet in Scapa Flow in WWI in 1919, over 92 years ago! As part of the Armistice agreement the German Fleet were anchored in Scapa Flow. The Commander of the German Fleet didn't want the dishonour of handing over his ships to the "Allies" so he scuttled them. Eventually most of the wreckage was salvaged in the 1920s and 1930s. There's lots of information online, but for a brief history click here
Now to the present day!
Currently on the island of Hoy, one of Scotland's leading climbers, Dave MacLeod, is leading a team to climb the St John's Cliffs. The island of Hoy has some magnificent cliffs and an old sea stack called the "Old Man of Hoy", which are a magnet for climbers. Apparently the cliffs that Dave is attempting are particularly challenging. His climb is being filmed and the production team have a blog here. Amazing photos!
I had no idea you had such steep, death-defying cliffs. Your photos of gently rolling hills are rather deceiving!
ReplyDeleteThanks for that link. I think they are insane, but they seem to be enjoying themselves.
Yes I must remedy my deceit and upload some photos of the wilder side of Hoy (landscape wise!) sometime..... not that I go very near steep cliffs myself you understand....
ReplyDelete