A Peedie Bit O' Orkney...

If you come to Orkney by boat, one of the first views you're likely to get of our islands is The Old Man Of Hoy - and you really can't miss him, considering the fact he's 137 metres tall (that's 450 feet in old money).

Here he is in all his glory:

Wikipedia entry here: Old Man Of Hoy (Freddie! Freddie! It worked... I gave a link a different name!)

There are other sea stacks round Orkney, as well as caves, arches and geos (like mini Norwegian fjords)... photos of some of them are likely to make an appearance at some stage... but The Old Man is the highest, and most famous. It's a magnet for climbers, and has been climbed by some of the biggest names, including Chris Bonnington (which was filmed for a documentary many years ago, in black & white), more recently Sir Ranulph Fiennes, and Chris Chittell (I think that's his name... the actor who plays Eric Pollard in Emmerdale).

Sadly, the coastal erosion that created him probably about 400 years ago is still ongoing, and there's a big vertical crack running from the top down... someday, he'll simply collapse into the sea (the sea already claimed his second "leg"... the arch at the bottom that gave him his name).