In which Sid and Doris go to The Mainland.
By Mainland Orcadians mean the largest of the Orkney Isles. We leave the small m mainland from Scrabster aboard the largely empty MV Hamnavoe.
We need not trouble the catering as we are pleasantly full of breakfast, eaten with a view of The Forss. The Forss House Hotel is a favourite with shooting and fishing people. In 1954 a 42lb salmon was caught at the bottom of the garden. Perhaps the Cayenne and Bentley in the car park were a clue this was not a youth hostel. Good news is that fishing dudes get up early so breakfast pre-ferry does not faze the kitchen.
The ferry takes us past the Old Man of Hoy. In 1967, along with 15 million others Sid watched on TV as pairs of climbers took three routes to the top. Of these Joe Brown was a hero to me when I started climbing in the 1970s. (I smoked roll ups in his honour and went to climb his routes.) The Old Man has since been free climbed, techniques moved on.
Arriving in Stromness we decided today would be Neolithic day and headed straight to Skara Brae.
In 1850 a storm took the top off dunes in the Bay of Skaill revealing stone houses that had been built largely underground. Given the wind and wuthering this makes good sense. There are nine houses to be seen and what may have been the Junior Common Room, nursery or a workshop. Really, who knows? So that they did not have to go out to visit their 70 or so neighbours the whole lot was connected by underground passages. The local stone splits to make slabs and so here you can see early flat pack furniture. This was 5,000 years ago so there were no Allen bolts to lose, but they did seem to have designs in common. Thinking about the life of the people at Rosal, things had not come on a lot in 4,800 years. In Skara Brae they had no metal but otherwise they could have lived each other’s lives.
To continue the Neolithic theme we trolley over to standing stones now known as The Ring of Brodgar (you can see where JRR Tolkien and Alan Garner got some of their stuff from) which we walked around. Enough of stones we set off to the Loch of Stenness (I don’t make this up) for birdie spotting: an oyster catcher and some LBJs.
Doris has found us a small house for our few days in the island capital Kirkwall. It is immaculately tidy and has parking outside the door. The afternoon is whiled away with unpacking, reading and shopping.
We tried to visit St Magnus’ cathedral but the clerics are not opening up though its doors are open to all, or at least everyone who is narrow enough around the beam to get through them.
The Earl’s House and Bishop’s house are just walls now so we are through there in about ten minutes.
Covid precautions are being ramped up again and as from tomorrow it will not be possible to eat out after six in the evening. We can feed ourselves at home from the Co-op and the local price-times-three Orkney deli. They both have Orcadian beer which we correctly bought in the Co-op.
We finish with some pictures of mushrooms spotted around the Ring of Brodgar.
We have brought along an extremely comprehensive guidebook to Orkney by Charles Tait, who observes “When archaeologists say that a structure was probably for rituals, what they mean is that they have no idea.”
The ritual-observing Brodgarians seem to have had some colourful mushrooms to inspire them.
By Mainland Orcadians mean the largest of the Orkney Isles. We leave the small m mainland from Scrabster aboard the largely empty MV Hamnavoe.
Doris has found us a small house for our few days in the island capital Kirkwall. It is immaculately tidy and has parking outside the door. The afternoon is whiled away with unpacking, reading and shopping.
