:: Orkney travelogue, part one

About time I shared some of the highlights of my holiday, before I forget. Click here to see photos.

I had a good drive up - the weather was clear and there wasn't a lot of traffic. I stopped off at Helmsdale, a little burg on the north-east coast. Very nice B&B - the man of the house was a fishing boat skipper and the house was right on the quay. The landlady and her sister were off to the Western Isles for the weekend for the Mod, the annual Gaelic cultural competition/festival. She belongs to a local Gaelic choir and her sister was along for company. In the morning she cooked Bertie a couple of sausages.

And so on to Scrabster, a fairly grotty little ferry port right near Thurso on the north coast. There was an hour or so to spare so I found a walk to a ruined chapel along the coast a step. The ferry trip was fairly smooth, although it was a windy day. I got chatting to a couple who turned out to be from the very village I was staying in!

I drove pretty much straight to said village, Orphir, which is roughly midway between Stromness, the ferry port, and Kirkwall, Orkney's main town. The flat was ideal, a roomy one-bedroom place with kitchen/livingroom and showerroom. The shower was fantastic, and everything was really comfortable. All mod cons, including microwave, TV, CD player/radio etc. I soon found a good walk for Bertie - down the road past the fields to the coast, then along a footpath to the Earl's Bu, the ruins of a Viking drinking hall, and back home along the road. Just lovely, and I did it every morning.

So: the highlights. There are so many sights it wasn't hard to be busybusybusy every day. First visit was to Stenness, for the Ring of Brodgar, a wonderful stone circle, and Maes Howe, a neolithic burial mound. This is like a smaller version of Newgrange in Ireland. Having seen Newgrange I suppose I was a little disappointed by Maes Howe: there was work in progress to repair the concrete roof and the guide wasn't the most enthused I've ever met. He wasn't even a Scot, let alone Orcadian! However, the tomb itself is interesting and has a lot of Viking grafitti. The Ring of Brodgar is wonderful - the stones are beautiful and the setting is sublime, on a neck of land between two lochs. The sun flashed out for a couple of minutes so I got some nice shots. I didn't take any photos at Maes Howe - most uninspiring.

The next day was grim - windy and cold - but after the morning walk I set out for the Churchill Barriers. Oh, first of all I walked round Kirkwall and visited St Magnus Cathedral, a magnificent building full of wonderful memorials and carvings and windows. So then I headed down the chain of islands - first stop was the Italian Chapel, built by prisoners of war on Lamb Holm. It's gorgeous.

I was ready for a walk so stopped fairly randomly at a likely-looking spot just by one of the barriers (causeways between the islands built as wartime defences for the Scapa Flow). Lo and behold there were a bunch of kids surfing! They had wetsuits on and boy did they need them - it was perishing. It started to rain while I was there and continued to rain pretty much through the next day. Also at that spot was a startling piece of sculpture, what I guess was a Jarl's head, with a winged helmet.

After the walk I pressed on south, heading for the Tomb of the Eagles, which had been highly recommended to me by a bloke at work. It is on a farm on South Ronaldsay, the southernmost island reachable from Mainland via the barriers, so it took a while to get there but it was totally worth it.

It's another prehistoric chambered tomb and it was discovered and opened for visitors by the farmer on whose land it is. The family has made a visitor centre at the farm house, with various bits and pieces they found in the tomb and at another site, a settlement, including pottery, skulls and stone tools. The farmer's daughter gave a really good talk, during which she passed round artefacts. It really is amazing to handle a piece of pottery tens of thousands of years old!

more later ... time for bed.