An Orkney Adventure

For most of my life, I’ve known –– or thought I knew –– just three things about the Orkney islands, namely: 

1. They’re off the north coast of Scotland, and so incredibly far away –– virtually inaccessible, really –– that it was highly unlikely I’d ever get there. 

2. This was unfortunate, really, because they’re home to Skara Brae, which I’ve wanted to see it for as long as I’ve known it existed.

3. It’s so windy there that there are no trees. Like, none at all. Imagine a place with no trees!

 

Well, let’s just bust a few of those myths upfront, shall we? 

First of all, Orkney’s main island (‘Mainland’) is only about 10 miles from the Scottish mainland: so, not, in fact, the huge distance I’d imagined. It’s actually pretty accessible, too, via a 90 minute ferry ride from Scrabster, on the north coast, and regular flights from at least four Scottish airports. 

Secondly, there are trees. Not a lot, granted, and a large part of the island is, indeed, pretty ‘bald’ (for want of a better word), but there are definitely some trees on Orkney. Which is nice for them, no?

So that just leaves us with Skara Brae, which turns out to be the only thing I “knew” about Orkney that wasn’t just completely made up. But we’ll get to that. First, though, here’s me and Max, on board the ferry we took to Orkney during our recent stay at the Ulbster Arms in Caithness:

Taking the ferry to Orkney 

We sailed from Scrabster to Stromness on MV Hamnavoe. It’s a huge, drive-on ferry, and although the crossing itself is only around 90 minutes we decided to treat ourselves to the Magnus Lounge, which is a private lounge area where you can relax with complimentary drinks and snacks. We got free breakfast rolls on the outbound journey, which left Scrabster at 7:15am (Hence the reason I’m wearing sunglasses in the photo above – I know it looks dark, but the sun had just come up and it was right in my eyes), and for the return journey, we were able to choose from the dinner menu for the ship’s restaurant, and the food was delivered to us. Fancy.

I absolutely loved this lounge (and not just because we got free prosecco on the way back…) and would really recommend it if you’d rather skip the crowds. With that said, though, we had a good wander around the boat too, and all of the restaurants and seating areas looked great, so I don’t think you’d be disappointed if you didn’t book it. 

The highlight of the  trip is the view you get of the Old Man of Hoy on the way past, although you’re going to have to take my word on that unfortunately, because it was pretty windy up on deck and I kept getting blinded by my own stupid hair: 

We had to go out onto the deck to see the Old Man (as we now feel well-acquainted enough to call him) on the outbound journey, because our lounge was on the other side of the boat; on the return journey, though, we got a fantastic view from our seats by the window, and we were able to enjoy it with complimentary prosecco in hand, so that’s another reason to book the lounge right there. (No, I am not on commission, I just really enjoyed it…)

As I said, the journey only takes about an hour and a half, and it seemed to go much quicker than that, so pretty soon we were docking in Stromness, which looked picture-postcard pretty in the October sunshine which decided to bless us that day. With just over 8 hours to spend on the island, though, we had no time to stop, because as soon as we drove off the ferry we were on our way to our first stop… 

Skara Brae 

Skara Brae is an incredibly well-preserved Neolithic village dating back to around 3180BC – so, older than both Stonehenge and the Great Pyramids. I have vague memories of reading about it in a history book when I was a child, and feeling like it was some kind of near-mythical place that I would probably never get to see, so you can imagine how excited I was to finally be headed there. My younger self would have literally died, seriously.

Skara Brae is only around 20 minutes from Stromness by car, and our route took us through winding country roads (Which are pretty much the only kind you’ll find here: there are no motorways on Orkney, and not so much as a single traffic light), and gave us some stunning views of the island. Skara Brae itself operates on a strict booking system, so it’s well worth booking your tickets in advance to make sure you don’t have to wait. We actually did this in the car en route from the ferry, and there seemed to be plenty of availability, but they only admit so many people at a time, and it would really suck to go all the way there and be turned away at the door, so, you know, don’t be us, kids: book in advance!

Once you’ve left the visitor center after paying for your tickets, you’re still about a 10 minute walk from the site itself. Not only is the walk really scenic however, taking you alongside a gorgeous, sandy bay, they’ve also made it pretty fun, by creating a walk “back in time”, using carved stones set into the ground to tell you where you are in your journey. So you start in the present day, very quickly reach things like the moon landings, and then keep walking all the way back in time until you finally reach Skara Brae itself:

Photos don’t really do the site justice: it’s one of those places you really have to see for yourself. I found it eerie and completely amazing to be able to stand there looking down into these ancient houses, which are so well-preserved that you can still see where the beds were, and even things like ‘dressers’, where the inhabitants would have kept things like ornaments and plates. For obvious reasons, you’re not allowed into the houses themselves, but there’s a replica of one of them at the visitor centre, which is a perfect recreation of one (You’ll know which one it is as soon as you see it…), and which gives you the chance to walk around and imagine what life must have been like. Or try to, at least… It’s thought that Skara Brae was inhabited for a few hundred years before it was finally abandoned, so it’s pretty amazing to think that you’re walking in the footsteps of what would’ve been many generations of neolithic people, who I guess would’ve been completely flabbergasted to learn that one day people would travel from across the world, just to look at their houses and take photos of them with their weird little phones. 

At the very top of the last photo, you can just see the outline of Skaill House, which is where local laird William Watt was living when the tops of the houses at Skara Brae, which had lain covered by sand for hundreds of years, were exposed during a huge storm in 1850. (Seriously, though, imagine looking out of your window one morning and realizing an entire neolithic village had just appeared in your back garden…) Your ticket for the site includes entry to the house, which was built in 1620, and was almost as interesting as the village itself. As well as displays covering the discovery of Skara Brae, plus artefacts recovered from the site, you also get a fascinating glimpse of what life would have been like for the extremely rich islanders back in the day. Max’s favourite bit – and mine too, if I’m honest – was the 1960s bathroom, created for the then lady of the house – but there’s so much to see here that we ended up staying much longer than we’d intended (We hadn’t actually realised we’d be able to see around the house too when we booked our tickets…), and had to have lunch at the visitor’s center, because apparently that complimentary breakfast on the ferry wasn’t enough for us. 

This was actually one of my only regrets from this trip: not that the tomato soup at the visitor centre wasn’t good, but simply because I know there are a lot of great places to eat on the island, and it would’ve been nice to try one of them. But, alas, time was not on our side, and so we had a quick lunch, then headed on to our next stop…

Ring of Brodgar

The Ring of Brodgar is a neolithic stone circle which is thought to date back to around 2500 BC – and, as amazing as that is, what’s even more amazing is that this is only one such sight on the Orkney islands, which are so rich in prehistoric sites that the few hours we had on Mainland weren’t even close to being enough time to see them all. Brodgar is one of the better known sites, but we still had it more or less to ourselves, and were able to take our time wandering around and soaking up the atmosphere and views. Like many of these stone circles, the exact purpose of the ring isn’t known, but, as with Skara Brae, I found it quite moving to know I was walking in the footsteps of people from thousands of years ago, who’d looked out at these same views. 

(And no, I didn’t go back in time when I touched the stones. Sorry, Outlander fans…)

Next up… 

Scapa Flow

From the Ring of Brodgar we drove back through Stromness, where we’d disembarked the ferry to take a quick look at Scapa Flow, which is where the German navy scuttled their fleet after World War I. I neglected to take any photos here, unfortunately, because there’s nothing to be seen from the beach (Which is a rather lovely one in its own right). The ocean floor here, however, is home to around 60 shipwrecks, a few of which can be visible from land depending on the tide and weather. We didn’t see any during our brief stop, unfortunately, but I remain fascinated and really quite disturbed by the thought of them all just lying there on the seabed… 

Which brings us to our final stop… 

Kirkwall

This is a terrible photo (sorry, Kirkwall…), but Kirkwall is the largest town in the Orkney islands, and it’s a vibrant, bustling little place which I’d loved to have had more time in. As well as the Cathedral and museum, there are also a couple of distilleries to visit, plus tons of little shops and restaurants; we, needless to say, though, didn’t actually do any of that because it was at this point we realized we’d spent much longer than we’d realized at our other stops, and now only had enough time for a wander through the center of town (plus a visit to a sweet shop we found there for Max…) before we had to head back to Stromness to catch our ferry back home. 

And this, I think, is my main takeaway from our 8-or-so hours on Orkney, and my top tip for anyone visiting: however long you think you’re going to need there, I promise you’re going to need longer than that. Because this may be a relatively small island, but it’s absolutely packed with things to see: and that’s without even taking any of the other, smaller islands into consideration, which you can reach by boat from Mainland. If possible, I’d love to go back and spend at least a week exploring properly, and that’s something I’m really hoping to be able to do at some point. For now, though, here’s a short video of our trip from my You Tube channel, which you can make my day by subscribing to here.