My last day in Orkney and I kicked it off in dear old Kirkwall again - though Kirkwall on a Sunday is completely shut and my favourite bannock shop was closed too so it's going to have to be oatcakes for tea tonight.

I decided to have a look at the Earl's Palace, another interesting slice of Orkney history taking in the medieval Earl's - people who aren't too popular in Orkney because they forced the farmers off their land, forced them to build the Earl's palaces when they should have been farming the land and feeding their families etc. From what remains of the palace/castle though, it was a very impressive building albeit clearly designed to keep out rebellious Earl wannabes and riotous local peasants.

The ticket woman (with the typical Orkney 40 something look) was a laugh. She asked about my stay and how I Iiked Island life, and I played my 'I'm Manx' card. She immediately proclaimed 'ooh you'll know all about it then!' and then we had a good natter about the trials and tribulations of shopping on an island. I asked her where an Orcadian buys large white goods and she said that you plan 'Shopping Expeditions' to the mainland. A group of you fly over to Inverness with purses full of cash and a detailed plan of the shopping centre, plus order of shops to visit, maximum time slots allowable for each shop etc - pretty much planned to the same degree as a trip to Everest. Then you spend as much money as you are able and get the last flight home (on certain flights/days there are no weight retrictions and you can get the rest delivered). I bowed humbly to her skill. I told her in the Isle of Man we do much the same thing at Liverpool, though we do at least have the 'man and a van' concept and the 'Manx Electric' shop that will sell you a washing machine at +20% the mainland asking price. 'And there's always catalogues' she added sagely though I asked about that little clause you see in all delivery details '...except to Isle of Man, Orkney and the Shetland Isles'. She had a lovely rant about this, how they always charge you extra just to get something delivered by the Royal Mail who should cover the area anyway and it was fraud, so it was, fraud. I shook my head and sighed sympathetically, but I saw this as a lost cause. I admired her passion though. I bade her a fond farewell as a group of tourists formed a queue behind me for tickets, and waved to her again on the way out.

There was some sort of bell ringing practise as I wandered round the castle too. The Cathedral is only just next door and I listened as a group warmed up with a slow bong bong bong then slowly mixed in more and more bells and finished with a long peal that went horribly wrong in a couple of places - but bell ringers have to practise somewhere I guess.

Then I rounded the highest turrent and a bloke said hello to me. Blow me, if it wasn't the bloke who took my photo on Hoy. He was just killing time until the boat back to Shetland (he was Scottish but he lived in Shetland). Turned out that he was a professional photographer (I knew it! It was the expensive camera that was the give away) presently on an assignment for Northlink Ferries. When he was on Hoy he was trying to catch the ferry as it went past but the weather was so bad he settled for some shots of me instead.

Quite a fascinating guy actually. In his 50s is my guess, grown up daughter sometimes referenced, he'd moved to Shetland originally because he worked in the oil business, but then he became an ecologist and finally ended up in photography a couple of years ago. He reckoned the design company in Lerwick was having trouble finding stock photos of local areas so he sent in a portfolio and he's been in work ever since. I asked him if he'd been sent anywhere exotic and he went erm, well he got sent as far as Edinburgh once - and got his fare paid to Iceland, only it was from Copenhagen so he had to get ther first. But he does a lot of portfolio photos for local artists, local news etc. He's happy enough with his new career.

Then we chatted about Shetland - he reckoned I was going to find it very different from Orkney. Orkney is very round, he said. Shetland is much more hilly with deep fjords, and the people have a different attitude too. I asked whether they were more insular and he said no, it was more that there was a lot of 'oil money' (in the same way you could say in the Isle of Man there is a lot of Offshore banking money and Orkney has, erm, farming and tourism). He says the island is going through generation number two who have got used to the affluence and mod cons of working with the big Oil firms and this is dangerous because one day its going to end and then they will be back to sheep farming. I drew parallels with the Isle of Man and it's tax haven status. Also, because he was Scot he was able to be disparaging about the locals and he said that they'd all like to think they were Vikings but actually they were probably all Scots. Again, I drew parallels with the Isle of Man.

Then I drew him onto wind farms. I got the predictable response - he hates them and he's presently violently protesting against a huge wind farm proposed for the middle of Shetland. 600 million in tax payers money, he reckons and it won't be able to pay for itself for years to come, if at all. From his old employment he's seen it all before - cost wise, wind farms don't make the money back and (certainly in Shetland anyway) the peat that they'd remove to set up the farm would absorb more C02 from the atmosphere than the windfarm would save in fuel consumption.

He favours a more small scale local approach - each village should be given money to create their own off grid system for their community, something they'd care for and maintain, and dole out the power from to its members. By seeing what they consume and being accountable to their peers for it, this would motivate them to consume far less than just seeing a huge wind farm on a hill and thinking 'oh its alright now'. I liked the sense in that. And he reckoned that though the population of the Shetlands hasn't increased that significantly, power consumption has gone up 5 fold. This is because people aren't caring what they consume. A couple he knew that went 'off grid' though with a wind unit and a little hydro unit on a nearby stream + batteries to store charge during dry/calm spells (cost 8 grand) - they were horrified to see how much e.g. a dishwasher impacted electricity they had worked hard to make, and so instantly stopped using it. All he's proposing is this on a slightly wider scale. Goodness knows how you make something like this happen though.

He also wasn't keen on Greenpeace. Says during that big oil spill they had years back when a large tanker broke up on Shetland shores - he reckoned Greenpeace was there kicking up a huge stink but all they were after was publicity and they didn't actually do a great deal. In the end, they closed off a fishing area for 10 years and the rest just cleared itself up, storms broke up the spill and took it away. Greenpeace are also very pro-Wind farms which he didn't like.

Then we drifted onto art. I think it was back to the fact he took photos of artists paintings for prints and portfolios. I mentioned my Mum's links with a gallery in IoM and that islands did seem to draw more of an art community than e.g. Manchester. He reckon he knew this fella once who worked in a music shop and collected guitars. When he got up to 10 of them he was persuaded to hand them over to the local artists to decorate and there was a display of them for a while that he did the publicity photos for. He thought that the guitars were no longer on display anymore but I should go into the shop anyway for a laugh and ask about them, mentioning him. I'm almost tempted.

Anyway, we talked for ages about stuff, and when we parted we joked we'd probably meet each other again on a Shetland cliff, such being the size of things and the way things work in small places.

Www.billyfoxphotography.com apparently. I'll definately drop him a mail when I get back, could end up being a useful contact.

Anyhow, all that chatting killed the morning, time for a bit of antisocialness again. Rennibister earth house was first and if you cross refer to my picture of it, you see that I took one look at it and thought, 'Are you taking the p*ss here?'. Basically it was just a fenced off piece of concrete with a lid in the centre of it that you lifted up, then crawled inside. Actually it was quite cosy when you got down there, but there cairns were getting more wierd and wonderful by the second. At least it was free.

Next was Cuween chambered cairn. This was like a slightly smaller and less expensive version of Maeshowe. You picked up a torch from a box outside, then got in via a short passage way you had to crawl down. Inside, it was nice and cool and sheltered, with three little nooks coming off the central section where presumably bodies were placed. The spookiest bit though was tucked into the wall of one nook was a little posy of dried grass, tied with another stalk of grass. It was very deliberate and looked like an offering or something someone would put on a grave. Probably being extremely blasphemous to the local pagan, I couldn't resist and made a second posy and put this next to the next nook along. Wonder how much this will freak out the next visitor. Must also learn how to carve runes so I can leave an 'Elly carved these runes' graffiti somewhere too. Yet again, just as with Rennibister and all the free cairns on Rousay - not a soul around but me. People really don't bother if there isn't an 'interpretation centre' do they?

Case in point - next stop was the Broch of Gurness. Has an entrance fee, a warden, and promise of lots of boards and video displays. Suddenly the carpark had cars in it again. Tent living is strange because you can look at the outline of tiny little Viking huts and think to yourself hmm, roomy. Like the cubbyhole there, looks useful. Quite warm and in a sheltered spot too. Nice bed space and firepit. Perhaps I've been too long without a proper bed and now suddenly even neolithic remains are starting to look comfortable...

Continuing my theme for today which was chattiness I had a little natter to the Warden at Gurness. He was a Orkney local and wouldn't be drawn on what Shetlanders were like, only that I would find it 'different' and he looked like he was holding his tongue about something. I wonder if there is some sort of inter-island antipathy going on here? Must dig further on this one. I asked if it was going to be significantly worse weather up their and he just blew out his cheeks and said it was all a bit pot luck really. He had a point, the microclimates around the island meant all weather forecasts were more or less meaningless and the best you can do is pack lots of jumpers and hope. He lived just over Burgar Hill a mile or two from the Broch and reckoned sometimes he could leave home in sun and discover and storm and gale at Gurness so...I saw his point.

Click mill next, a Viking vertical shaft mill like an automated quern stone. Again, free, in the middle of nowhere, had to hike across a field and let myself in, and no soul there. I liked it though - clever little system. The vikings were way more advanced than the picts, no wonder they kicked their asses.

Finally, as it was closing time at all the pay-for stuff and I'd done all the important free stuff, I went back to the Brough of Birdsay (low tide) to look at the broch, and finished off playing at Yesneby again, getting some nice sunset shots.

And now I'm sitting at Hatston
Terminal waiting for the ferry - no point going to Kirkwall as everything will be shut except the pubs and drinking would be a bad thing right now when I need to load a car onto a ferry. Indeed I think the thing may now be in port but my car is so crusted with salt and muck it's difficult to see.

Is it wrong to be excited about getting a proper bed tonight? (even if it is only for 7 hours). As to the Shetlands themselves? I really don't know what to expect any more so I guess I'll just have to turn up and see...wish me luck (especially with my phone signal - if it all goes wrong this may be the last you here from me until the 22nd...nah surely it's not THAT much of a backwater...)