It's so strange having so much light for so long! Last night at around 11:30 it was still quite
light outside. We had been experiencing
this for a while up in northern Scotland so it was no different to that, but it
was weird. It's not the land of the
midnight sun, but I don't think it really gets dark until around midnight, and
it probably gets light again around 4am.
In our cottage we didn't have any curtains, we had blinds. Which are fine to an extent, but it really
doesn't prevent the room from getting bright when it does outside...! Still, I think we managed to sleep until
around 6am and from then on we were dozing until around 7am when our alarm went
off, just because it was light outside.
I had contemplated buying an eye mask before this holiday as well....!
So, today we had originally decided to stay on the mainland
and explore the east side of the island, until we discovered that most shops in
Kirkwall would be closed on Sunday. I
know it kind of makes a little sense, but I think the further north you go in
the UK and certainly the more remote you get, there is less of a chance of
things being open on Sundays. So, we
decided to explore the west mainland instead, as more things would be
open. I had found a craft trail booklet
in our cottage which I was interested in, and we thought it would be a good
idea to pop by these workshops en route to the other places we were planning on
visiting. As it was Sunday we expected
them to be closed today, but I thought there was no harm in checking them out,
because if they were closed we wouldn't be spending much time there...or much
money! Most of these places – if not all
of them – sell their work in other places, such as Stronmness and Kirkwall, so
we'll get a chance to see it at some point anyway. We just might not have a huge selection of
their work to see because I imagine they would probably have more at their
workshops.
So, this morning the weather was chilly, windy and grey
although strangely bright. Today we
started off on our way to the Stones of Stenness, but first we stopped off at
Unstan Neolithic Chambered Cairn. Human
bones including a crouched skeleton were discovered in here when it was
excavated in 1884 and 1934, and this one has a modern roof. In actual fact, the passageway into the Cairn
was very easy to get through by crouching only – no need to go onto our hands
and knees!
Next we arrived at the Standing Stones of Stenness, one of
the earliest stone circles in Britain.
Originally this circle consisted of 11 or 12 stones, surrounded by a
wide ditch crossed by a single causeway, both of which can be seen today. In the centre of the circle there was a
hearth. The name Stenness comes from the
old Norse “Stein-nes” meaning “stone promontory”. There were probably more stones and sites in
the landscape, and it's easy to come to this conclusion when you keep coming
across random stones in the Orkney landscape.
Behind the stones is the “Barnhouse Village”, which surprised
archaeologists in 1984 during excavations, what with being so close to the
Stones of Stenness.
On our way to the Ring of Brodger, we went across the Ness
of Brodgar, the causeway through the mainland.
Excavations have been taking place here recently, although they aren't
currently open to the public, but they have discovered a walled enclosure
surrounding a number of structures, one building measuring over 20 metres in
length. Unfortunately for us, it wasn’t
open – it’s a student dig which runs for 6 weeks a year and tours only take
place then – we were a couple of weeks too early.
When we arrived at the Ring of Brodgar, it seemed like we
had timed our visit perfectly – there was a coach party in the process of
leaving! There were a few other people
there but in general it wasn't very busy, which meant that we were able to get
some photos without having many people in them.
We also discovered that the area around it is being left alone for
wildlife purposes, and is part of an RSPB nature reserve – we discovered that
it was home to quite a few Northern March Orchids!
We visited Skara Brae next, again our timing seemed to be
good, as there weren't many coach parties in and some were leaving. Before we left Skara Brae we went onto the
beach – unplanned because my bottle of water had dropped out of my bag and fell
down over the wall into the sand! After
rescuing it, we went onward to the Brough of Birsay.
On the way, we stopped off on one of the craft trail
workshops. We had already passed one
which looked closed but we took a chance with this one – Fluke Jewellery – and
we weren't expecting it to be open...but as we were about to leave, I noticed
the “Open” sign on the door. We went in
and discovered a little shop with a workshop behind it. He made silver into various shapes of
wildlife – shells, starfish, dolphins, whales, flowers, puffins...and of
course, flukes – which are whale tails. He
is the only silversmith who makes fluke pendants which are species specific,
which would definitely appeal to whale lovers!!
I had been eyeing up a shell pendant in the booklet and I decided to get
it when I saw it there. It's a “Venus
Shell” pendant, although it was listed as a charm, but it was the same size as
the pendant on the chain. Well, I have
plenty of chains, I don't really need any more right now...! We told him where we were off to next, and he
suggested a place on Birsay where we could possibly see some Puffins, as they
are out and about in June....
Leaving the workshop, we continued on to the Brough of
Birsay. At Skara Brae we had discovered
the tidal times for today – as this Brough is only accessible when the tide is
out. It turns out that we timed our
visit perfectly with the tides, so after eating lunch in the car, we headed off
out there. Before the Norse came to
Orkney, Pictish people lived on the Brough, of which several houses have been
excavated. Traces of these can be seen today,
including a Pictish stone in the 'graveyard', and you can also see Norse
houses, along with a 12th century church.
After exploring these ruins, we took a walk out on the
Brough and went pretty much all the way around it. There were plenty of sea birds around but we
didn't find any Puffins until we were almost back at the ruins again! We saw them in flight, but they didn't
land. There were plenty of burrows
around which they could have been using, but we didn't see anyone at home while
we were there at least. But yey! We saw some Puffins at last, even if they
were just in flight! We may yet get to
see them elsewhere on the Orkney Islands.
Next we went to the Brough of Gurness. This was a strong, circular tower of the Iron
Age (around 500BC), and the walls of this one stand around 2 metres or so in
height. Made of dry stone, we could walk
through the doorway which wasn't too low and inside were all the familiar
looking chambers and a hearth in the centre.
Around the outside of the main tower, are small dwellings, a village. It turns out that we can only see part of the
settlement, as the sea has eroded away the rest of it. The entire complex is surrounded by a number
of banks and ditches encircling the site.
Midhowe on Rousay is located just across the water from the Broch of
Gurness, and is very similar to this one.
We went on to Tingwall to the Jetty in order to book a ferry
to Rousay for tomorrow. Unfortunately
the office wasn't open as it was Sunday, so it looked like we would just have
to turn up and hope for the best....but we thought we might just call the office
tomorrow morning and find out if we can reserve a space on the ferry over. We weren't planning on going over until
10:20am which isn't the earliest crossing.
We were planning on three island trips on this holiday- Rousay, Hoy and
Westray – and we were planning on breaking them up with days on the mainland in
between. We thought we might be able to
book ourselves on the ferries to the other islands at the same time, so we had
no idea what was in store for us until Monday morning – tomorrow.
On the way to the cottage, we stopped off at Maes Howe
although we knew that there would be a possibility that we wouldn't be able to
book ourselves on a guided tour, as this is the only way of seeing it. When we got in, the bookings were almost
full, and we were lucky enough to get a place on a later tour at 6pm. So we went back to the cottage and popped out
again in time for the last tour of the day.
Mathew was amazed at how many runes there were inside!
Maes Howe is the finest chambered tomb in north west Europe,
and is dated to around 5,000 years ago.
The roof of the main chamber is a corbelled vault. Its top was removed by the Norse when being
used for shelter, and later by Victorians and the current (and shabbily built!)
roof was built in the early 1860s. It is
largely believed to have been used for communal burials, but it has been
difficult for experts to say what it was definitely used for, as it has been
disturbed so many times in the past, and bone fragments discovered here are now
lost. Around midwinter the sun shines
through the passageway and lights the back of the chamber for three weeks
before and after the shortest day of the year (21
st December). The walls are covered in runes – basically
graffitti – which the Norse are believed to have inscribed into the stone
during a stay of 2 days there.
After our guided tour of Maes Howe, we went back to the
visitor centre, bought the guidebook which had info on quite a few other neolithic sites in Orkney,
and went back to the cottage for dinner.
Tomorrow we would try and get on a boat to Rousay!
