Although the village of John o'Groats in Scotland has long been proclaimed as mainland Britain's most northerly point, it isn't. That prize goes to Dunnet Head, 17km west of John o'Groats and 11km from the hamlet of Gills Bay, where we board a car ferry for the one-hour journey to the Orkney Islands.
The Orkney archipelago of 70 islands and islets is one of the world's most significant prehistoric sites, recording at least 5,000 years of continuous settlement. Laden with Neolithic, Pictish and Viking heritage - including stone circles, burial mounds and brochs - the islands lie at the meeting point of the stormy northern Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea.
Our summer crossing to the village of St Margaret's Hope is across calm blue-grey waters. On the way, the ferry passes several emerald-green isles fringed with jagged cliffs and dotted with small stone houses, most of them abandoned, before pulling into the pretty fishing village on the island of South Ronaldsay. From here we cross several causeways on the 20-minute drive to the island of Mainland and the Orkney capital, Kirkwall.
More than 6,000 of the islands' population of 20,000 people - who do not see themselves as Scottish but as Orcadian - live in Kirkwall, a well-preserved town dominated by St Magnus Cathedral, begun in 1137 when the islands were ruled by the Norse Earls of Orkney.
Nearby are the ruins of the 12th-century Earl's Palace and Bishop's Palace, the Tankerness House Museum, which displays a fascinating collection of prehistoric, Viking and Pictish artefacts, and the local tourist information centre, where friendly staff find my partner and I reasonably-priced accommodation at Deerness, about 20 minutes' drive away. Our Orkney home, a cosy cottage, sits high on a hill above the North Sea with views across fields that have been farmed since the Stone Age.
A dozen or so grey seals, or selkies as they are known here, poke their heads from the waters and watch with brown liquid eyes as we wander along the beach near our house.
The ocean lies calm and translucent, a long shining line against the horizon, as we hike cliffs teeming with seabirds to the remains of an ancient Norse chapel. Home to more than 300 recorded species, Orkney is one of the world's major migration routes for birds including gulls, kittiwakes, Arctic terns and Britain's largest colony of puffins.