The largest settlement outside Kirkwall in the east is the attractive harbour village of St Margaret’s Hope on South Ronaldsay, Orkney’s third largest settlement.  Here a catamaran ferry runs to Gill’s Bay near John o’ Groats. There is an art gallery and craft shop, hotels, an award-winning restaurant, a golf course and the William Hourston Smiddy Museum.  Films and live drama are regularly put on in the Cromarty Hall.  In August the Boys’ Ploughing Match and Festival of the Horse is held.  There are gentle sandy bays nearby at Sands o’ Wright and at Herston.  At Hoxa Head you can look across Scapa Flow to the isle of Flotta and might see porpoises passing by.

South of ‘The Hope’ as far as you can go is Burwick Pier where you can take a foot ferry to John o’ Groats in the summer.  Here also is the Tomb of the Eagles, a Neolithic chambered tomb which was found on a farm.  The family-owned visitor centre offers a welcoming talk when you can handle artefacts before making your way on a stunning coastal path to the tomb, where eagle talons were found amongst the burial.  There is also a Bronze Age burnt mound.

South Ronaldsay is one of the linked South Isles, which are connected to each other by the manmade causeways, the Churchill Barriers, built by Italian prisoners-of-war during World War Two.  The linked isles are Glimps Holm, Burray and Lamb Holm - home of the famous Italian Chapel, a work of art created inside two Nissen huts.