seaweed munching sheep

Just on the way back from the most Northern of Orkney Islands, North Ronaldsay. There are tonnes of bird watchers on the ferry with me – looking around, most have nodded off to sleep. It feels like I just stepped back in time on the cruise ship – everyone sleeping after their day out. The tennis is on.

So the journey to head out there today was really nice, it took around 3hours. We popped to a few other islands first – Eday, Sandbay and then North Ronaldsay. There is not that much on the island – there is one main road that has 5 left hand turns and 3 right hand turns. It has two piers, a mill, one VERY tall lighthouse and… seaweed munching sheep – I know, they made me smile so much chomping away on that rubbery stuff. I mean I remember having crispy seaweed from a Chinese restaurant before and that was nice. I was told by the lady in the lighthouse that the sheep taste real good and very different to normal sheep.

The island actually traded in their seaweed and it was a huge part of their economy back in the day. So not only do the sheep eat it, they use it for fuel, building and supporting their houses and their was something else too – but i forgot now.

It used to have 500 houses and now there are only 60. All houses are owned by the North Ronaldsay Trust but there are an awful lot of derelict builds – awaiting repair – they would be lovely and if you have a spare 40K lying around you can buy these stone shells.