Orkney (2)

20 – 22 September

Farewell to Stromness

In the nick of time we saw the notice on the facilities block door saying that the exit from the site would be closed between 10 am and 2 pm while the road was resurfaced.  So our departure was a little more hurried than usual ….

The weather forecast remained unpromising, but we headed to the Brough of Birsay at the northwest tip of Orkney, where, at low tide, you can cross the causeway to see the lighthouse and various ruins.

It looked rather bleak so we settled for a photograph and walked instead to the Skiba Geo, a deep cleft in the rocks which was used as a harbour, with a fisherman’s hut and nousts (shallow depressions in the ground for boat storage) a little way up the bank.

After a leisurely lunch it was back south to Skara Brae, a magnificent village from the Neolithic Age (New Stone Age) which dates back to around 3000 BC.  It has survived so well partly because it was made of stone, and partly because it was semi-underground.  It wasn’t so much discovered, as emerged after a particularly bad storm in the 1950s.

We then headed to the site in Stromness; we missed a camping sign and found ourselves inching our way through the extremely (and I mean extremely) narrow roads of the heart of the town.  Lesson learned: always put the satnav on!

Next day included a brief explore in Stromness, a drive along the road along the south of the island and finally a pleasant walk from the campsite along the coast on a tarmac path overlooking the islands of Hoy and Graemsay.  While we were out we watched the evening ferry pass through the channel between these two islands and Orkney mainland*.  We even had some pale evening sunshine!

On Friday we had a few hours left before returning to Scotland on the ferry.  Ring of Brodgar, a Neolithic henge and stone circle, was still on the to do list.  It is generally believed to date from 2500 BC to 2000 BC and was probably used for ceremonial purposes.  Only about half of the sixty or so stones are still standing but it was very atmospheric and gave a feeling of the scale of the site.  Just a shame that as a result of ongoing drainage works, many of the stones were surrounded by fences!

The final outing on the Orkney itinerary was to Yesnaby, which is really wild coastline with steep sided inlets, sea stacks and arches resulting from erosion.

Then it was time to get the ferry back to Scotland*.  It was incredibly windy and the sea looked pretty rough, but, in actual fact, it was probably a smoother ride than on the outward journey.

*As Ian Banks has written in “Raw Spirit”: On Orkney never call Scotland ‘the mainland’. Orkney has its own Mainland; that’s the correct name for the big island that Kirkwall and Stromness are on.  Scotland is called Scotland.