Farewell to Stromness

We spent a comfortable, but short, night in one of the accessible cabins on the NorthLink ferry from Kirkwall to Lerwick. We didn’t board until 11.45pm so by the time we got to bed it was nearly 1am and the ship’s horn sounded at 6am to wake everyone to be ready to leave the ship at 7.30am.

After breakfast in a café watching an otter hunting in the bay, we drove south to Sumburgh Head lighthouse. I was delighted to find that the place is now a visitor centre and some of the volunteers there knew the old lighthouse keeper who had shown us round the lighthouse when I was a teenager camping nearby with my family.

Still enjoying beautiful weather, and with most of the day to fill before we could check in to our Airbnb we grabbed a quick lunch at Sumburgh airport and made use of the Changing Places Toilet before a visit to St Ninian’s Isle, or at least to the tombolo which connects it to the mainland. Once again the Treki was put through it’s paces. Getting back up the soft sand path would have been a struggle but kind people offered to help pull as Summer pushed. Racheal loved the sound of the sea on both sides of her and Summer took the opportunity to have a paddle.

We knew our spacious, ground floor flat was going to be a bit of a challenge to get into as the owner had explained that the entrance porch was narrow, but fortunately there was space outside, under cover, to hoist Racheal into her Convaid Cruiser (smaller chair). This is the biggest accommodation we’ve had so far with room to leave the changing table up all the time - a real luxury!