Sid and especially Doris have wanted to go to Orkney for a very long time, so it comes as a slight shock to realise that it is already a popular tourist destination with plenty of opportunities already grasped.
But Bothy knows that creativity is always rewarded.
1. Rainbows
Rainbows have featured extensively in this trip. With showers often coming through at regular 20 minute intervals, and the sun angling under the clouds due to the high latitude (59’N), the sun-onto-raindrops requirement is met several times a day.
In Ireland it is well known there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
Where is the Scottish equivalent? How can this be monetised? The Bothy McGauntlet is thrown down.
2. Skara Brae
Sid and Doris were fascinated by Skara Brae and the history of this 5,000 year old settlement. But Bothy looked at it and said: This would make a fantastic location for filming The Hobbit… or better yet, a mini-golf course.
Orkney has loads of 5,000 year old settlements, with more being discovered every year – but no mini-golf courses. Hastings has already discovered this can be
a rich seam of tourist gold, and Orkney could too. Come on guys, get creative! You could win the “
Best New Use Of An Old Heap Of Damp Rocks” award.
3. The Orkney Creative Trail
Building a “tourist trail” that links up many individual sites can be hard. The Prisoners’ Dilemma and other game theories come into play. Popular attractions or sites which are on the main tourist drag may not want to subsidise the enterprise, which they may think will mainly benefit the more out-of-the-way places.
So Bothy nominates the “Orkney Creative Trail” for his “Herding Hand-Crafted Cats” award. It’s a shame that Sid is a bit of a craftophobe so Doris has not been able to load the Mini up with hand-thrown pottery, heather-perfumed candles and tie-dyed rugs yet…
4. The Inexplicably Secret Toy Shop
The Free Library in Kirkwall was funded by, and eventually opened by, Andrew Carnegie in 1909. He funded 660 libraries in the UK and Ireland, but it is a fair bet that this is the most northerly. (Pause for our reader to google “Carnegie Library in Shetland” and prove Bothy wrong. Anyway, a few years ago the library itself was moved to a new building, and the beautiful old building now contains one of the most comprehensive and satisfying toy shops you could ever hope to visit. As you can’t tell from looking at the building.
As a tiny example of the completeness of its offering, here is a small shelf in a hidden corner of just one of its many rooms; their collection of Tractor Ted DVDs with footage of Mighty Maize Machines in action.
In their defence they are
good on social media. Maybe the youth of today don’t look at the front of shops any more. Maybe Bothy is not the core target audience for this shop. In any case he is nominating them for the “
Give Yourselves a Break!” award for the most downbeat marketing.
5. St Magnus Cathedral
But not if you have a Large Lockdown A*se. The main doorways into the cathedral are possibly intended as a very physical reminder that rich people, or people who can afford large quantities of food, cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.
This is a very strong contender for the “Most Sanctimoniously Discriminatory Award“. Bothy says that if you are going to keep a substantial proportion of the population out (or rather, if you are going to keep out a population with substantial proportions) then you should at least put the gift shop outside and get their money anyway.
6. The Orkney Wireless Museum
Another top entry for the “I Didn’t Know I Wanted To See That And Now I Am Devastated That It Is Shut” award.
It is in a very little building and possibly contains only a few spiderweb-infested rusting old radio sets, but in Bothy’s imagination it is a magical cave filled with geeky delights.
7. Doull B and Sons, St Margaret Hope
Orkney is full of places that seem large on the map but are small in reality. Signs to town centres and local amenities turn out to be one or two buildings. Which is completely in line with Bothy’s view that you should maximise your assets. But not, sadly, if you are trying to sell homegrown organic products to people who come from the town where Allinson’s mills are based.
This shop display of nostalgic flour goods is entered for the “You May Not Have Realised But It’s Not From Round Here” wooden spoon award. Ha ha! Wooden spoon!! Bothy is such a wit.
8. Hoxa Head WW2 Themed Non-Cafe
So you have successfully lured people out for a 60 minute walk round Hoxa Head to see the WW2 installations and marvel at how cold and inhospitable this would be as a wartime posting.
And on the way back to your car, visible from a nice long way away, there is a building on the left that would make an ideal WW2 themed cafe. Bothy can see it now. Tea in enamel pots, Vera Lynn playing scratchily on an imitation radio, maps of Scapa Flow up on the wall, condensation dripping down the windows and everything slightly overpriced because of the theme.
Where is it? Not here. Bothy shakes his head in despair and nominates the buildings for one of his “Opportunity Gratuitously Missed” awards.
Sid and Doris were fascinated by Skara Brae and the history of this 5,000 year old settlement. But Bothy looked at it and said: This would make a fantastic location for filming The Hobbit… or better yet, a mini-golf course.
The Free Library in Kirkwall was funded by, and eventually opened by, Andrew Carnegie in 1909. He funded 660 libraries in the UK and Ireland, but it is a fair bet that this is the most northerly. (Pause for our reader to google “Carnegie Library in Shetland” and prove Bothy wrong. Anyway, a few years ago the library itself was moved to a new building, and the beautiful old building now contains one of the most comprehensive and satisfying toy shops you could ever hope to visit. As you can’t tell from looking at the building.
