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HIGHLANDS & ORKNEYS
4
days / 3 nights - Saturday to Tuesday
DEPARTURE DATES & PRICES FOR YEAR 2008
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Tour Code
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Depart
Inverness
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Return
Inverness
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ORK
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Saturday
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Tuesday
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ORK
01
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07 Jun
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10 Jun
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ORK 02
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12 Jul
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15 Jul
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ORK 03
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06 Sep
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09 Sep
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ORK 04
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04 Oct
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07 Oct
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COMBINE THIS TOUR WITH:
Borders 3 Days / 2 Nights departs Glasgow Wednesday Extend Scotland and Northern Ireland from 3-days to 14-days by combining the Oban, Fife
and Ulster tours.
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Price: GBP £485 pp twin share / GBP £505 single room
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What
your tour price includes
- Your
accommodation for 3 nights while on the tour is included
in your tour price, and this includes both full breakfasts
and dinners
- Your
price also includes all entrance fees to attractions,
transportation, services of driver/guide-companion
and all taxes and tips other than those you may wish
to give your guide
- Transfers
or train tickets to Inverness are not included but
can be organised on your behalf on request. It may be possible to accompany our vehicle travelling north or south, from or to Glasgow pre and post tour at a marginal cost. The most convenient option will be recommended at the time of booking.
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| TENTATIVE
ITINERARY |
NIGHTSTOP
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DAY
ONE - Saturday
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tour departs from Inverness at 11.00, allowing joining participants
to travel up on either the day prior or on the morning train from
Glasgow/Edinburgh. The train journey is itself a somewhat spectacular
ride through the Highlands.
We'll then enjoy a journey through
Europe's last great wilderness and the stark beauty of it all
is quite simply astounding. Highlights include Cromarty Firth,
where we may see seals and the Dornoch Firth. You'll see prehistoric
sites such as the Grey Cairns or Camster, Golspie's astonishing,
90' high statue of the First Duke of Sutherland, notorious for
the Clearances in the Highlands in the 19th century and some
of the small, settlements of this remote region.
We'll arrive at Scotland's northern
most tip, to catch our ferry to the Orkney Islands at 19.00,
arriving on the island at 20.30. The ferry ride across is naturally
stunning in the context of the late evening setting sun.
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Orkney
Kirkwall or Stromness
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DAY
TWO - Sunday
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We have
two full days to explore the delights of these islands - and
there's something here for everybody.
Kirkwall is
a beautiful old town with many interesting historical sights
including St Magnus Cathedral, Earl's Palace and Bishop's Palace,
Tankerness House, the Wireless Museum with its huge unique collection
of wartime communications equipment, wireless sets, headphones,
old magazines, ancient valves and lots of other displays. Out
of town there's Grain with an Iron Age souterrain, with stairs
leading underground.
It is perhaps
for its astounding archaelogical sites that mainland Orkney
is most renowned. We'll visit the most important places with
Skara Brae being top of our list. Built before the Pyramids,
Stonehenge and the Great Wall of China, the ten houses that
can be seen today were occupied from about 3100 to 2500 BC.
Historians believe that the site was gradually abandoned as
the island's community developed and people's needs changed.
Over the centuries it was covered with sand and remained untouched
until a winter storm blew up in 1850, thus bringing the Stone
Age into the modern era. Other sites we can potentially visit,
according to group interest, can include a selection form the
stone circle of the Ring of Brodgar, the Stones of Stenness,
Maes Howe, Brough of Birsay, Broch of Gurness, the Rennibister
Earth House and Onstan Cairn.
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Orkneys
as above
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DAY
THREE - Monday
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Continuing our explorations today,
we will see Scarpa Flow, a huge natural harbour. As well as
being the resting-place of HMS Royal Oak, whose wreck is marked
by a single buoy, it is also the graveyard of the German High
Seas Fleet. Then there's the Italian Chapel, originally a couple
of old Nissen huts, decorated in imaginative style by Italian
Prisoners of War. The chapel stands as a reminder of the unfailing
faith of the Italians and their ingenious use of scavenged material.
Of course, we must make time
for the rugged natural beauty of the island. Marwick Head and
its 200-foot drop straight down into the foaming sea. Many birds
nest in the nooks and crannies of the cliffs. Yarnsby Cliffs,
formed by layer upon layer of the Middle Old Red Sandstone that
makes up most of Orkney, these cliffs are a warm, ochre colour
with fossil "horse-tooth" stromatolites, blue-green
algae that grew in the lake that covered Orkney 350 million
years ago. On the nearby moorlands, you may see some tiny mauve
flowers with yellow centres, rare Scottish primroses found only
in Orkney, Shetland and Caithness. If you look south, you might
just see the outline of The Old Man of Hoy, the much-photographed
sea stack off the Orkney coast.
We board our ferry after dinner, sleeping aboard in comfort.
The ferry doesn't actually leave until the following morning
but boarding now helps maximise your sightseeing time.
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Overnight on
ferry Orkneys
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DAY
FOUR - Tuesday
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Our ferry departs at 06.30 AM
allowing early risers a wonderful prospect of enjoying a 90-minute
coastal 'cruise' watching for birds and sea life in early morning
sun. There are not too many places in the World that one can
honestly write are unspoilt, or undiscovered, but Caithness
is surely one of them. This is true Back-Roads Touring country
and we promise you some more amazing sights and unforgettable
experiences!
Here, precariously hugging wind-swept
cliffs are literally hundreds of castle ruins, connected in
many cases to the warrior clans Sinclair and Gunn. In the northerly
town of Wick we'll visit the Heritage Centre and learn how people
have survived in this incredible terrain of peat bog and over
the centuries.
Then there's Dunnet Head. This
most northerly point on mainland Britain rises some 100 metres
above sea level. The Dunnet Head lighthouse was built in 1831
by Robert Stevenson, grandfather of the author Robert Louis
Stevenson. It was automated in 1989. On a clear day the view
point allows the visitor to see as far as Cape Wrath to the
west and enjoy a stunning panoramic view across to John O'Groats
and Duncansby Head, while to the south lies Morven, the highest
mountain in Caithness. Between John O'Groats and Wick we'll
enjoy time stop at one of the remarkable and spectacular cliff
such as the famed Stacks of Duncansby. It's a dream for bird
watchers as we invariably find puffin.
We'll be returning to Inverness by late afternoon, allowing for evening connections (16.55) back to Glasgow or Edinburgh. Perhaps you'd like to stay-a-while and enjoy time in this Highland capital, and take various day tours offered to Skye and Aberdeenshire - we can book any additional arrangements as required.
>> Go to tours departing from Glasgow
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NOTES:
Train information:
. Glasgow to Inverness depart 07.10. Arrive 10.28
. Edinburgh to Inverness depart 06.40. Arrive 10.28. Both require
change at Perth.
. Inverness to Glasgow./Edinburgh. Depart 16.55. Arrive approx
21.00.
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