4-14 July 2024 – Embracing the north – part one of three

Location: Edinburgh and the Orkney Islands, Scotland

Author: Mrs A

Ok, I admit we are a little late posting this, but it has been a very busy summer! We are now on another holiday, this time in France, so I have had a few moments to reflect on our July trip. It will be in 3 parts due to the many photos!

4 July: Off to bonny Scotland

While we officially booked this trip in October last year, the initial seeds for exploring the archipelago of Orkney were sewn back during the Covid lockdown of 2020 when my cousin was working hard to explore our ancestry. She was able to trace on our mother’s side back to Orkney, stumbling on direct links to the King of Norway back in the 1500s. Very exciting! Mark always called me a princess, and now I know I am (or the tip of my little finger is, at least!).

Finally this much anticipated trip was upon us, and we took an EasyJet flight up from Bristol to Edinburgh and checked into our hotel. We had two nights before boarding a short flight over to Orkney Mainland.

Dinner was a fabulous seafood feast at Fishers in the City, somewhere I had eaten at in 2019, but was very keen to bring Mark for our incredible meal of fresh oysters, scallops, squid and other local delicacies.

Dinner didn’t disappoint – even Mr A said it was one of the finest dining experiences he has consumed

5 July: Edinburgh’s underworld

Edinburgh is a bustling and pedestrian-friendly city with a variety of shops, overlooked by the magnificent castle on top of an extinct volcano.

Windswept on the Royal Mile, Edinburgh

It’s been a few years since we last explored this friendly city, and (although some of the local residents could have done with subtitles) it was great to see new things. After a morning of Mr A satisfying his outdoor shop addiction, we attended a tour of one of the ‘underground streets’ of Edinburgh, a 1600s laneway which had been compulsory purchased and used as foundations in the 1700s to create a new indoor marketplace.


The Real Mary King Close – named after Mary King, a fabric merchant who built her own business after her husband’s death, a tour of the close is brought to life by one of the costumed character tour guides. Image source: Forever Edinburgh

The history was fascinating, and it was incredible exploring the low ceilinged rooms and even seeing the hand printed walls still preserved after all these years. It was presented in a somewhat theatrical way, with our guide dressed up and performing as though she was a resident from the lane which distracted a little from the interesting stories.

Dinner was at Sen, a little independent Vietnamese in the University Quarter. The food and menu was so delicious and interesting, we decided to book in for the following week too!

6 July: Another day, another flight

And so off we went to our ultimate destination, the Orkney Islands. It was a quick flight from Edinburgh to Kirkwall, and then a 10 minute taxi ride to our accomodation. The aerial views as we crossed the archipelago were magnificent, with turquoise waters lapping on white sandy beaches. The only thing missing was woodland. We could see the islands stretching across into the horizon, with barely a tree in sight.

A patchwork of greens to greet us

Our first impression of Kirkwall was somewhat grey and unremarkable. The majority of houses are single storey bungalows, or semi-detached, looking like they are on a 1970s council housing estate. Most have been rendered with pebble-dash, and together with the grey skies, and icy-cold July wind, made for a not-so good first impression.

We had dinner in town, the first of many dishes of hand-dived scallops, a speciality the Orkneys are famous for, and met our group guide at 9.30pm for a quick update on the plan for the following morning.

Delicious!

7 July: Westray reveals its wonders

It was an early start for a huge Scottish breakfast, before loading our walking and photography gear into the back of a mini bus and meeting our fellow hikers for the week; three single ladies, one single man and another couple. The supermarket was our next stop, to pick up yet more food to make up our picnic for the day. This pattern continued all week.

Next it was off to board our ferry to the Isle of Westray, a 90 minute ride away from Orkney Mainland.

Threatening skies on our ferry journey
In between the gloomy skies, glimpses of sunshine turning the water into glittering diamonds

Once there, we drove up to the north of the island, where we parked up, donned our backpacks and took off on a hike.

There was little else around us, the occasional farmhouse and plenty of cattle and sheep. No other people to be seen.

A cuddly looking calf watches on curiously as we walk past

I was carrying my telephoto lens on this walk, so was hopeful for no rain. We had been told this was a great nesting area for seabirds, including Arctic Tern, Northern Gannet, Common Guillemot, Kittiwake and the much anticipated Atlantic Puffin.

Arctic Skuas, known as the pirates of the coast, soared along the coastline, ready to thieve the freshly caught fish from other birds.

We followed the coastline, seeing that breeding season was in full swing, with birds perched precariously along the cliff side with their young looking small and vulnerable with the huge drop below.

Northern Fulmar – Rarely seen from land except at colonies such as this – the male is beaded with water droplets, fresh from catching fish for his partner
Wrapped up and ready for anything, Mr A got a lot of use out of his binoculars
Black Guillemots wearing their breeding colours – fabulous scarlet legs matching the inside of their mouth
Razorbills having a chat on the edge of the cliff. If you look carefully into the shadowy crevice, you will spot an Atlantic Puffin listening in!
A Northern Gannet soars along the coastline before diving torpedolike into the ocean for fish.
A male Gannet has just brought food to his partner on the cliffs
Rain jacket and waterproof trousers blocked the wind quite nicely, along with the essential wooly hat!

We were dressed up warm against the cold wind that seemed to be ever present in the Orkneys, the treeless land offering little shelter or resistance, but once mesmerised by the birds, forgot all about the temperatures.

You could sit and watch the interaction between the birds for hours, accompanied by a constant cacophony of calls

And, of course, the Puffins! They showed up in their comical way, like little clowns with their brightly coloured beaks and legs and yellow cheek spots.

And suddenly a Puffin appears on the cliff beside us! He’s in full breeding colours with white face and bright yellow cheek and a white extension to the beak between the black and red colouring.
You know that classic picture of a Puffin with a bunch of fish in its beak? Well, I didn’t capture that one – just this one holding a feather!

It was hard to tear ourselves away, but after consuming our lunches we continued on our walk.

Mr A chatting to our fascinating guide, Alayne, who was a great storyteller with a lot of knowledge about the islands

A short drive in our minibus took us to the ruins of a castle with a chequered history. Noltland Castle was built for Gilbert Balfour, master of Mary Queen of Scots’ household in the late 16th century. Apparently 71 gun holes dot the walls, making it as much of a fortress as a manor house. Apparently he was quite paranoid about being murdered!

Commanding views across the relatively flat landscape

After leaving this castle, we were taken on a short walk to another one – Castle o’Burrian, a squat sea stack with a bustling Atlantic Puffin colony. We sat on the cliff edge watching in wonder at the birds as they made their clumsy, fluttering flight, sitting amongst the sea pinks and grasses, and taking many photos.

Puffin kisses – rubbing beaks to show affection – apparently they mate for life and this is a bonding ritual they undertake after being out at sea
Getting ready for take-off
Just bobbing
A non-Puffin! Walking along the cliff back to our minibus we get the feeling we are being watched…and indeed we are. Far beneath us is a seal. There are two types found in Orkney; the Grey Seal and the Common/Harbour seal. About 15% of the world’s population of Grey seal lives here, and they are well known for following in the water as people walk along the shore!

Our final destination before our journey back was to a tiny museum which, among many other incredible discoveries, housed Scotland’s earliest representation of a human form, uncovered at an archaeological dig in 2009.

The Westray Wife – found at the Links of Noltland. Made from sandstone

A ferry back to Mainland, and dinner in a local restaurant concluded our day by 10pm, just in time for sunset.

8th July – Scara Brae and Stromness

Our start was a little later this morning, as we didn’t need to catch any ferries, our day entirely on Mainland.

Can you spot Twatt? Apparently the sign has been stolen so many times they no longer use one!

The day dawned bright and sunny, and although the wind remained, it felt quite a bit warmer and so one or two less layers were donned.

We started off with a drive across to the north-west of the island, where we did a spectacular coast walk to another major bird colony.

Our walk’s start point affords us a great view of Old Man Hoy, a sea stack off the coast of the island of Hoy
A huge Northern Gannet colony on the cliffs – the noise is incredible!
There are many wild rabbits on this part of the island, including several black ones we spotted. There are no major raptors around to catch them, since the last Golden Eagle failed to rear chicks and died out in 1982.
The huge seabird colony at Marwick Head – turn up your sound for the full effect! Up on top of the headland is the Kitchener Memorial, built to commemorate the HMS Hampshire which hit a mine in Marwick Bay in 1916. It sunk in just 15 minutes, resulting in more than 700 lives lost.
Black-legged Kittiwakes perch alongside Razorbills on precarious and often uncomfortable looking ledges, raising their young

Finishing our walk we headed down to Sand Geo, a beach by some old fisherman’s huts for our lunch. Out of the wind it was almost warm! The huts themselves date to the 1800s and were designed as shelters for the local fisherman, house boats and equipment.

Looking up at the fisherman’s huts
Sand Geo, our picturesque lunch spot
A non highland cow using a bull as a pillow
The motley crew of hikers

Scara Brae was our next destination, much anticipated and read about in advance, though once we arrived we realised that most of what we had researched was already out of date and superseded with new learning – even the information in the visitor centre was now out of date.

Scara Brae is Europe’s most complete and well preserved Neolithic village which literally emerged from the sand dunes after storms in 1850. You can almost imagine the amazement as literally overnight houses were revealed, complete with stone beds, dressing tables, fireplaces, drainage and even toilets were revealed. People would have lived here between about 3180 BCE to about 2500 BCE, and at the time the Orkney Islands would have been far further south, with a much warmer climate.

The site sits on the edge of a white sand bay
The houses had drainage and stone bed areas, and would have had stone slabs on the roof
It felt quite eerie seeing such familiar things from more than 5,000 years ago
The houses had curved walls, not corners as seen on the right hand side, and no windows. The ‘dresser’ front and centre of the room was thought to display precious things, the beds surrounding the fire in the centre of the home

The house from which the village was first discovered is called Skaill House, and in it I was able to find a huge family tree on a wall which mentioned people on my family tree. By this stage I have lost trace of what relative Bishop Honeyman was, but we certainly have Honeyman genes in us somewhere!

My house! Ha ha!
The beach in front of the house, surrounded by sand dunes
The family tree, which somehow leads to me on the Honeyman side

Our route took us on another short walk, this time to another magnificent sea stack along the coast, with some fauna and flora unique to Orkney along the way.

Yesnaby Castle sea stack – we watched the three kayakers explore the caves in the cliff
I wonder how long until this completely collapses?
When you get close to the ground you see it is rich in tiny plants and flowers, all adapted to existing in these harsh conditions – the purple flowers are wild thyme, the yellow are Tormentil
Primula scotia – the Scottish Primrose – endemic to just three areas – Caithness, Sutherland and Orkney. It is commonly overlooked as its flowers are so tiny
This bee didn’t look well, but was alive. It is an endangered Moss Carder Bumblebee, and only found in the far northwest of the Scottish mainland, Orkney and some of the Hebridean islands.

We jumped back into the bus for our final destination for the day, the small town of Stromness, where more people from my family tree lived, and then sailed from to Canada to become founding members of the European settlers there.

It was just spine tingling seeing the well from which the ships would have filled up their water for the journey, and finding the oldest house in Stromness, which would have been modern in my ancestors time, and perhaps somewhere they would have visited.

Marking the location of the well
The entrance to the oldest remaining house in Stromness – built in 1716 and known as the Miller’s House

It’s easy to delve down rabbit holes on the interweb and a quick read about the time my ancestors would have lived there reveals a town with no sewerage, little fresh water, and no indoor sanitisation. Not a hard place to leave, once would assume, when invited to settle a new land with the promise of fine farmland and adventures across the oceans.

Stromness Harbour
Old fisherman’s cottages
The water was very serene

A pub dinner concluded our amazing day, and again we were home in time for sunset, just after 10pm.

10:10pm and the sun is just going down. At this time of year the dusk stretches out until around midnight, and then it starts getting light again around 4am!