DAY 13

Saturday June 4^th  2016                                                           

The Orkneys                                                                                  Miles 10

Well, apart from the journey to and from my B&B to the ferry at John O’ Groats, I did not do any driving today, although, apparently, the coach I was on traveled 120 kms on the islands.

The Orkneys have always been somewhere that I have wanted to visit.  Both to see the Neolithic remains and also Scapa Flow, which played such a significant role in both World Wars.

My ferry left JOG at 9.30am.  It had a very unusual way of docking in that it put its bow into the dock this was partly tied off and then it reversed slightly around and along the rubber tyres on the sea wall as the bow line was slowly let out.  Seemed to work, but they will have to repaint the side of the boat at the end of the season!   The ferry takes 40 minutes to make the 6 miles crossing to Orkney.  There are other ferries that run from Gills Bay and Scrabster, both of which also take cars.  You can even travel from Aberdeen, over night, and this ferry then goes on to the Hebrides.  The ferry was cold and they are missing a trick by not serving coffee on board.  As we crossed the Pentland Firth we got to the point where the current from the North Sea meets the current from the Atlantic Ocean.  Quite wild waters and the boat rocked a good deal.  I definitely would not like to make this trip in the winter.

For 500 years the Orkneys and the Shetlands belonged to Norway and still to this day, Norway Constitution Day (in May) is a holiday on the islands.  Apparently the King of Norway wanted his daughter to marry James III, King of Scotland.  She must have been fairly ugly as James asked for such a big dowry that the King of Norway could not pay it all, so pledged the islands as security while he found the money.  He never did make up the sum so the islands became Scottish.  The Orkney flag is very much like the Norwegian flag apart from the addition of yellow around the cross.

There are 70 islands, big and small that make up the Orkneys and they have a population of 70,000.  The area they cover could apparently fit easily within the M25 ring.  They are at latitude 59 degrees north, which is the same as Churchill in Canada and St Petersburg in Russia.  Their winters are becoming milder and they rarely ever now get snow or frost.  Their summers are also cool, the highest temperature ever recorded was 27 degrees, but generally 17 degrees is the warmest they get to.  They get a lot of rain, especially in the winter.  In winter the sun does not rise until 10.00am and sets at 3.00pm.  In the summer they get 21 hours of daylight, with the sun rising at 3.00am and not setting until 11.30pm.  The one saving grace of only 5 hours winter daylight is that they frequently get a good display of the Northern Lights between October and March.  (It lifts their depression I’m told).

Our first piece of history was the Churchill barriers.  There are 4 of them and now roads run across them and they join up the main islands.  As Britain prepared for war in 1939, ships were sunk between the small islands to prevent U Boats from entering and attacking the fleet.  Unfortunately even with these sunken ships in place a U Boat did get through in October 1939 and sunk the battleship Royal Oak with the loss of 824 lives (only 12 sailors survived the sinking).  Churchill ordered the building of concrete barriers and Italian prisoners of war were brought onto the island to build them, though they were not fully completed until almost the end of the war.  At this time local fisherman lobbied for them to be removed but as they now provided easy access between the islands they remained.  Driving across them you can still see the remains of some of the sunken wrecks that they replaced.

The Orcadians were not at all friendly to the British troops and sailors stationed on the island during the war and it was seen as an awful place to be posted to.  However a junior officer wrote a poem about the “bloody islands and the bloody islanders” that was published in the local newspaper and the Orcadians decided to change their ways.  (You can probably find the poem on the web).

There are almost no trees anywhere on the islands, cut down many centuries ago.  We were shown a small plantation in a protected valley that the local primary school children are taken to, so as to let them see what a wood looks like.  I saw daffodils still in bloom, bluebells and also primroses.  They say they are about 6 weeks behind the south, but their weather is changing.  They are on the Gulf Stream.

The cathedral in Kirkwall the capital is a very interesting red stoned building.  It was built by the Norwegians and later, during the reformation, was set to be destroyed, but the King relented as long as no catholic services were held there.  At one time Oliver Cromwell used it as a stables.  It also is the only cathedral in the country to have a jail in it.  There is a pit, right by the pulpit, where recalcitrants were incarcerated so that they could hear the sermon and mend their ways.  It was also a place of hangings and a number of women were hung for being witches from the rafters.  Today it is a completely open religious building and can be used by any faith.  Today when I visited there was a “weeping window” display of ceramic red poppies (from the Tower of London Remembrance Day display).  This was in memory of the Battle of Jutland, which took place one hundred years ago on May 31^st.  David Cameron, the German President, Princess Ann and other dignitaries attended a service here on Tuesday.  Tomorrow (Sunday) there is also to be a commemoration of the sinking of HMS Hampshire in 1916 with the loss of 737 lives, including Lord Kitchener.

Kirkwall is very small by mainland standards and feels almost like a small country town in England, but with few people or cars.  All the shops shut promptly at 5.00pm.  I did notice an out of town Tesco, so no doubt this is where most shopping now happens.

Orkney View

My main reason for visiting was to see the Neolithic remains which are abundant on the island, with almost certainly, lots more still to be unearthed.  The most fascinating was the 5000 year old village at Skara Brae.  This was only discovered in the late 1920s when a windstorm took away sand dunes and the village underneath was exposed.  The buildings are older than the pyramids and they know that more buildings are probably near by still buried under the surrounding fields. 

Skara Brae

After this we drove to the Ring of Brodgar, standing stones about 1000 years older than Stonehenge.  These form the third largest henge in Britain.  I had not appreciated that there are over 1000 known henges in Britain, with Stonehenge being the most complete and well known. 

We next saw the Standing Stones of Stennes, a much smaller henge, but with stones up to 6 metres high.  Close by to the henges is the fairly recently discovered Ness of Brodgar, at least 12 extremely large buildings, of unknown function, which are still being unearthed.  Unfortunately there was nothing to be seen as they were covered with black plastic.  They only have money to excavate during July and August!  This was disappointing as this was what I had most wanted to see. 

Equally disappointing was the fact that we could only drive by, but not stop, at Maese Howe a Neolithic burial tomb.  This is so small that coaches are not allowed to take groups here, only cars with few occupants are allowed.

All of these sites had their hey day during Neolithic times, but it is likely that they lost their position in society when iron and especially bronze came along.  We see similar things today, as old industries give way to new ones and new towns or societies take over from earlier ones (think of coal and steel, computing and the economic rise of China and India).  The difference today is that it happens at a much more rapid rate.

We also visited Stromness, the second largest town, but it is actually not very big and has only 1 main street with little by way of shops along it.  There was a cruise ship in port, the Silver Seas Explorer. I was surprised to learn that the Orkneys are the second biggest cruise liner destination in the UK.

Our final visit was to the Italian Chapel.  This was a wonderful find.  It is an ersatz church “built” by the Italian prisoners of war from two old nissen huts at their prison camp.  Using cast off materials they lined the building with boarding and then painted it (expertly) to look like the inside of a stone built church.  It is quite remarkable how real it looks.  It was hardly finished when the Italians were taken off the island and repatriated.  In the late 1960s the main “architect” was found in Italy and he came back and repaired it.  It is now a well preserved symbol of unity between Italy and the people of the Orkneys.

One thing on the funny names front, there is a good sized village on Orkney that is called Twatt!  My British friends will understand this.

John O'Groats from the ferry

The journey back to JOG was slow and cold, but I am now warmly ensconced in my BnB.  Weather today was generally sunny and is forecast to get better as I travel west tomorrow.  I have managed to secure a BnB booking in Lochinver, so I hope the drive there is OK, but I will be entering the “500 mile drive” of single track roads and it may take me longer than I have planned.  I feel that as I turn west I am now on my homeward journey, although I know that I am not yet at the half way point!

The posting of this blog may be delayed as the internet here is very slow and at the moment is “down”.