An Orkney Adventure - Week One

At last its time for our annual holiday, come with us on a trip to the Orkney Isles. I've included lots of links of places we visited, places we ate and things we really enjoyed. We always try to support local when on holiday and especially in small communities like the Orkney Isles. This was really easy to do these two weeks as the Islands have a huge commitment to locally produced food, drink and arts and crafts. There are food trails and creative trails and lots of info about where to find all these artisans.

From Peebles to Thurso through sunshine with rain and strong winds in Thurso which didn't bode well for our crossing. We had a very nice lunch and mouse dog walk at the North Gateway - Inverness. Great food and dog friendly and an ideal place to break the journey (its now closed for a refurb so check when it re-opens if you are heading that way). The hotel was ok, as usual if you are travelling with a dog you more often than not get the scrappier rooms, but it was only for one night and cheaper than a lot of places. Dinner was in the hotel and was ok, though David's tartar sauce never did appear.

Saturday - from Scrabster to Stromness on MV Hamnavoe with NorthLink Ferries. The ferry was very comfortable and so much smoother than my usual Calmac travels. Mission accomplished with no seasickness thanks to Isabel and Fiona's suggestion of motion sickness bands and standing watching the wild scenery pass by while David and Maisie enjoyed the dog lounge. Great views of The Old Man of Hoy and lots of inspiration for my potential book and paintings.

Stromness

Once we came ashore we had a lovely lunch in stromness at VPCo Stromness Coffee. Both a coffee house and printers, they have not long moved to their new premises and its set in a lovely old building on the main street. Great service with friendly staff too. It was really quite wet but lovely to be here and after some food shopping we set off for Skaill House where we stayed for two weeks. We are looking forward to a relaxing time of painting, photography, reading, walks and good food

Peerieskaill, our home in Skaill House for two weeks

A relaxing Sunday starting with a sunrise over Orkney and a walk on Skaill beach before the rain. I love the raw energy and wildness of Scotland and especially the coast. On a beach being blasted by the wind, with the waves crashing onto the shore, foam and spray filling the air and gulls wheeling overhead. Wrapped up warm in a cosy jumper, jacket and wooly hat with my pockets full of beach finds is where you'll find my happy place.

My ancestors arrived in Orkney 1000 years en-route from Norway to what was to become the battle of Stamford bridge. Already a viking settled land, can you imagine arriving on these wind swept islands not knowing as a princess what your future held, the only certainty that you'd be married off for strategic gain.. ..

"The sand blew up the beach, covering the footprints of the royal party as they walked, hunched over, towards the Earl's palace. Behind the boatmen hawled the luggage out of the boats, splashing through the freezing water to pile it on the beach to await collection"

Skaill beach

After a very bracing walk on Skaill beach on Sunday morning, a stones throw from where we are staying, I spent the rest of the day painting. Catching up and finishing off October in my journal including our walk at Gameshope and visit to Beamish. Ready to start some paintings of our holiday when I feel inspired

 

We spent Monday exploring South Ronaldsay starting with the Italian chapel, build by Italian prisoners of war during WW2. Created from Nissan huts and whatever materials they had to hand, it is well worth a visit to see the artistry creating the illusion of a much grander building. Across the Churchhill Barriers (build by the same prisoners) and a walk on Holm Beach where there were good views of the sunken block ships used as barriers during WW1. Southwards to the most southerly point of South Ronaldsay stopping at the highest point of the island, Olad summit where there were good views of Hoy, Scapa Flow and the Orkney mainland.

A walk in Olav’s wood, probably the only woodland walk in Orkney, planted down the side of a burn, started 50 years ago, it has become a great wildlife habitat but also shows the difficulties in growing trees in Orkney and getting plants established.

On to Windwick Bay which has great views of sea stacks and looming cliffs but is also known for its seal population and at this time of year Gray seals and their pups. We counted over 25 pups, but there was probably more as they and their mothers are so well camouflaged against the rocky shore.

Back via the Churchill Barriers and along the road past Ophir with great views of the hills of Hoy.

Tuesday and a day in Kirkwall exploring Orkney’s capital. We mostly wanted to visit the Orkney museum which is full of many of the fascinating artifacts found in many archaeological excavations done on the islands over the years, the neolithic and viking exhibits were what I wanted to see the most. I did manage to find a garden...... the museum has a garden with borders, a rock garden and although its late in the season there were a few flowers out.

We had a lovely lunch in the Real Food Café (not because the shop is painted turquoise just to be clear), it's dog friendly and the food good. We had a platter of Orkney cheese and Orkney Bere Bannock (which tastes similar to Irish soda bread and was lovely), followed by cake and coffee of course.

Bere (pronounced ‘bear’) is a form of six-row barley which has been grown in Orkney for a very long time, brought here possibly by viking settlers. Bere is quite possibly Britain’s oldest cereal grain still in commercial cultivation and it has adapted to growing in soils with low pH and in areas with long daylight hours, such as Orkney and Shetland, when it doesn’t really get dark during the summer months. It grows rapidly and being sown in the spring and harvested in the summer. You can read much more about Bere on the Barony Mill website. The mill was closed for winter when we were here so we didn't get to visit.

We had a wander around the town, finding lots of lovey shops, especially a huge deli, The Brig larder where we bought lots of local produce for dinner, which will also last several lunches and possibly another dinner. We spent a while browsing in dog Friendly Orcadian Bookshop where I bought a few viking related books for research. On to the harbour where would you believe there was a fishing boat called Maisie Moo (which our Maisie gets called a lot! What were the chances lol). The

Kirkwall

Wednesday and we fully immersed ourselves into the Neolithic era of which Orkney has an abundance of: cairns, stone circles, burial chambers, tombs, standing stones and villages. These sites are older than the pyramids in Egypt, older than Stonehenge, in terms of age and artifacts they are significantly more important. It is believed the idea of stone circles was started in the Orkneys and Shetland and the idea taken south………. let all that sink in for a minute. Skara Brae dates from 3180 BCE, the Ring of Brodgar about 3000BCE and Steness slightly older. The chambered cairn of Maeshowe also dates from this period. All these sites are part of the Unesco heritage site and are managed by Historic Environment Scotland (formally Historic Scotland). All the ones we visited on this day were dog (on a lead) friendly appart from Maeshowe.

We started with the Ring of Brodgar, and I’m not going to bore you with the stats, you can look them up, but you can understand why they were built there, when you stand in the landscape, in that natural bowl surrounded by low lying hills, on a very narrow ribbon of land between two lochs, it feels symbolic, it feels a special place. This is the largest stone circle in Britain, not all the stones are still there, but more than enough to see how big it is. From there you can see down to the Ring of Stenness on the other side of the causeway and the watch stones and marker stones between the two.

Having walked around the Ring of Brodgar, David took the car to Stenness while Maisie and I walked the half mile between the two. Stenness is much smaller but it is the older ring by about 500 years! Its stones are taller, more visible in the landscape and non the less imposing despite their smaller number. With the water on either side, the reeds and water birds, other than the buildings of modern man it feels like not much has really changed. If those people came back they would still recognise their land.

From here we drove to the Maeshowe visitor centre to get our tour of the ancient chambered burial mound. Only accessible by tour and no photos allowed you’ll have to take my word that it was incredible in its construction… and it is also home to the largest collection of viking runes, carved by those men who broke into the tomb in the 1100’s and left their grafitii, perfectly preserved in the sealed tomb. Again you can look up exactly what these Vikings were writing about, like graffiti today, nothing has changed much.  managed by what was known as Historic Scotland.

Lastly, I know I blether on, we headed to the coast to the Broch of Gurness. Remarkably well reserved, many brochs barely exist any more. Much newer than the sites we visited earlier in the day this broch dates from 500-200 BCE. It also has a very well preserved village around the outer walls and when you see photos on line taken from the air, it all makes sense. 

The Ring of Brodgar

Stenness Stone Circle and Maeshowe

Broch of Gurness

We went to Stromness for takeaway on Wednesday night and ended up watching the fireworks, spectacular across the harbour, a very well attended night by all the locals and our takeaway was excellent too

Another Orkney inspired painting - The Ring of Brodgar in moonlight

Thursday and the weather was very foggy with rain showers so we postponed our planned cliff walk and headed to Kirkwall to do some food shopping and pick up our Japanese take away. We stopped off at the Viking Earls Bu and round church at Ophir on the way back.

The Orkneyinga Saga, dating to about 1136, tells of a great Yule feast given by Earl Paul at his bu, or residence, in Orphir. It describes a ‘large drinking-hall’ next to a ‘magnificent church’. The remains of that church survive today. 

Once we were back at Skaill house the rain had stopped so we went for a walk on Scara brae beach. It was much calmer and warmer than the first day and with an odd light due to the fog that was still hanging about.

The Earls Bu and round church and Skaill beach

On the recommendation of fellow instagramer walledgardenborders we went Japanese for takeaway tonight and picked up some amazing food from Sakura in Kirkwall. Ordered on line and collected, would highly recommend if you are ever in Kirkwall. Ordering was easy on their website, lovely folk when I collected and the food was delicious.

The first page in my journal for Orkney

From sunrise to sunset on Friday and on to the ferry to Hoy, a half hour sailing to the south of the island on Orkney Ferries. We booked the night before, easy at this time of year when its quieter. We were mainly going to visit the Scapa Flow museum but also to see the rest of the island. Its an island of two halves with low lying farm land to the south and dramatic heather covered hills to the north. It was also an island of two weathers when we were there, sunny and blue skies to the south and fog in the hills to the north. We didn’t have time to see everything so hopefully we will get back later in the week. The Scapa Flow museum was great, situated in one of the WW2 buildings with a new extension which also has the cafe. Lots of artifacts and information about the role of the islands in both WW1 and 2. The cafe was good, a fairly basic offering, the soup was great, but it is good at this time of year as there wasn't any other food places open on the island. After the museum we had a drive around the island visiting the Martello tower, again closed, but great views on a sunny day like this day. We drove northwards visiting Betty Corrigall's grave, a very lonely atmospheric site, especially when we visited and the mist was low and gathering around. We drove to the end of the road, Moans, where the passanger ferries goes back and forward to Stromness across the sound. We turned around to head back for the ferry, enjoyed the fantastic show of the clouds rolling off the Hoy hills, this is known as Orographic cloud, it loooks like water flowing down the sheer sides of the hills.

The Museum

Views of Hoy

Sunset skies while waiting on the ferry

Because we got the ferry back in the late afternoon it was dark by the time we were driving back to where we were staying. We took the road back via the stone circles and were rewarded with a fantastic show of the full moon between the stones of Stenness.

Saturday and a short drive up to Birsay to visit the Earl’s palace (a 16th century earl this time, we moved on from the Vikings), the Bough of Birsay, a walk on the beach and a lovely lunch. For all Orkney is an island and has many beaches it’s a bit lacking in beach finds, so far I have 7 shells, 2 pieces of sea glass and a couple of interesting pebbles! If you want limpit shell there are thousands but not much else. We timed it right for the tide being out and the cause way was clear for walking over the to Brough of Birsay. We didn’t have to me to walk over to the light house or viking ruins, we could do with a third week here to see all the other things we wanted to see, but have been balancing it with really rest full days and not rushing around like loonies like we often do on holiday.

Any way if you are ever at Birsay eat in the Birsay bay tearoom at the end of the village, great food, great service and fabulous views out of the bay, they even have binoculars beside the table so you can watch the wildlife. They have an outdoor eating area where dogs are allowed, but its a wee bitty cold at this time of year but Maisie is content in the car and warmer). There's also a great wee village shop selling lots of basics and Orkney foody gifts and a wee shed shop selling crystals, fossils and the like.

Painted stones in the Earls palace

Birsay Bay and lunch

On the beach and causeway at Birsay

Part two coming soon!

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