20th July 2019
Having pre arranged my transport to WRY for "the world's shortest flight" with a taxi driver who was also taking the flight, I again had an unlucky feeling when looking out of the window first thing
At breakfast the first phone call came to say "delayed"
I had 2 problems at this point:
-I knew the flights that afternoon and the next day were all rammed so there was absolutely zero possibility of any rebooking
-I knew there was an ATC strike coming up which would mean KOI had no flights on the 22nd July; given I was currently booked on the last flight out on the 21st this didn't leave much wiggle room in terms of rebooking options for flights and ferries
(the third problem of course was that this item would remain on the bucket list if not removed! Quelle horreure! Although with whatever the present tense version of hindsight is, I had realised that these islands that I had previously thought of as being a place to visit purely for the purposes of taking a 2 minute flight actually had a fair bit more going on, so on reflection a return visit wouldn't be *so bad*)
I had no phone reception so everything was going through the guest house, which was pretty tiresome for everyone I imagine. But I was reluctant to straight up say "cancel" while the flight was simply delayed for weather
Anyway. The inevitable cancellation phone call came after I had already missed the morning ferry. My room was also needed so I wound up with a day to kill in not great weather.
Logic dictated that the next best thing to actually taking the flight was to go up to the airport and see if I could see PPW the other side, thus demonstrating how short the now cancelled flight would have been if I'd taken it
On route I managed to fixate some cows (any insight into why these cows were following me, much appreciated)
Arriving at the airport it was readily apparent why the flights were cancelled. There would be no views of PPW today
(unable to upload panorama cos FT)
And thus it was time for my old friend
Tonight's hotel was The Shore in Kirkwall, directly across from the ferry pier.
Slightly annoyingly they weren't able to help me with dinner since I hadn't made a reservation in advance (which I find kind of astonishing for in house guests), and as I was tired and cold I didn't much feel like tramping around looking for somewhere else so went to bed hungry