The Orkney Boat goes home

Dear Friends and Allies of The Orkney Boat,

Our time in Norway is drawing to a close. The Tess Bess is sailing south to Trondheim. Any day now she will arrive to take me and The Orkney Boat on board as far as Shetland.  After this I intend that we will board the passenger ferry to Kirkwall, arriving around 21st August. So, the stone will not be stationary for some time yet, not even when it arrives home, as the last 12 miles of the Magnus Way await us in September.

Trondheim has been incredibly good to me. The Orkney Boat has been housed in the stonemasonry workshop of Nidaros Cathedral, amongst Norwegian soapstones- both tamed into carvings and wild in their raw, block form. And I have had the privilege of working alongside the restoration team, for the first time shaping a stone using an axe, with my beloved stone anchor waiting beside me. As well as a banker mark- traditionally a mason's signature, this stone, intended for the King's Entrance, is marked with two tiny footprints pointing west, towards the North Sea and home.

And so begins the return of The Orkney Boat.