Very Olde England

Does this look like the country of giants? Is this Hagrid's secret hangout? This World Heritage site was formed by lava from a volcano. It went into the ocean and when it cooled, it cracked into thousands of columns. You can see the end of the old volcano on the hill above here. Columns in the water turn dark. Ones above the level of high tide are lighter in color.
The tops of the columns look like this when you are standing on them. We walked all over this great pile.
The gap in the columns is made by Muggles, who wanted to build the road. But we could walk all around the Giant's Causeway because of the road the Muggles built.
Look! Water can actually flow uphill! In this smuggler's cove, nature plays a trick on your eyes. The rock tilts down. The water is flat. But it does not look like that way.
This seal near the Duncansby Stacks in far northern Scotland was enjoying the warm sun and was not bothered by tourists in the boat. This shot was taken with a telephoto lens, though.
Here we are going into some caves near the Duncansby Stacks. Our boat took us right into the caves, where thousands of birds nest. The green is mold. White is dung from birds. Red and black are the colors of the rocks.
The stone at the north tip of Scotland is Caithness Granite and is extremely hard. But the power of the North Sea is harder, and it has worn the caves, inlets, stacks and arches. This is a beautiful area to visit. Even in August it was cold, but amazingly beautiful.
Duncansby Stacks area from above. The ocean has worn these deep inlets for miles along the coast. Early settlers also built forts between the inlets to protect them from Vikings and other fierce enemies.
Ancient people honored their dead royalty by building stone cairns for their graves. These were carefully placed so they could be giant calendars. When the sun shone right down the walkway, they knew it was spring and time to plant their crops. This is one of the Clava Cairns.
Remember the adventure Frodo Baggins and his friends had when they got lost in the fog on the barrow downs? These are standing stones which I am behind. They are also part of the giant calendar and mark the position of sunrise.
This chart tells you about the Clava Cairns and what they were for.
Cairns had passageways in them so people could visit their dead and bring gifts. If you turn your head with your right ear down, you can see one of the passageways. We crawled in. It was muddy and dark but very interesting. These people could do amazing things with stones.
The Grey Cairns of Camster are in the far north of Scotland. They are very large grave mounds with many passages going into them. Look how carefully the stones are placed. These were built as long ago as the pyramids of Egypt were built.
This is the narrow end of one of the long Camster cairns. Notice how carefully the stones were laid. Do you think people did it with muscle, or might they have used wands to move such large objects? Think of your Muggle Studies class and imagine how they did it.

Early peoples built round towers so they could keep watch for their enemies and also for the weather. This is a modern tower built in the old style. A few complete towers with caps exist in Ireland, but we did not find any in Scotland.

Notice the black clouds. You never, never go anywhere in Great Britain without having a raincoat and an umbrella where they are easy to get to. In three weeks we did not have one completely sunny day. But we knew how to get dry easily (it's magic!).

The next posting will be about the Romans and the things they built.