Anyway, today we were on our way to Westray. First off, we were glad about the weather –
we had blue skies and sun and we hoped it would last all day! The downside, was the surprise of the price
to get to Westray as we had to pay £70 for a return trip for 2 adults and 1
car....we knew it would cost a little more than Rousay and Hoy but not THAT
much...!! But it turned out to be well
spent in the end :)
Our time here was limited to just over 3 hours but we
planned everything in advance – we were on the ball today! As soon as we arrived on Westray, we headed
straight to the northwest tip, known as Noup Head. The map I had printed out detailed a circular
walk around the head, but we knew we wouldn't have time to walk the whole of
it, so we had already decided on a partial walk up there. The map stated there was a car park right up
at the lighthouse as well as at the bottom of the hill, so to make the most of
our time we decided to head to the one right by the lighthouse. This was interesting....the road ran out and
turned into a very gravelly, stony and inevitably bumpy track which you would
normally assume farming vehicles would only use. But eventually, after about 3 fields or so of
sheep and cows, we arrived at the lighthouse where there was a little place to
park. We had already seen the red van
which was there anyway. Out we got, and
looked at the lighthouse before we went on our short walk. The lighthouse is 24 metres high and 79
metres above sea level, built in 1898 but little is known of its history.
We headed through the gate into the reserve to walk along
the cliffs a little. Apparently whales,
dolphins and porpoises are occasionally seen on the shores at Noup Head on
Westray, but we didn't see any today.
The Noup Cliffs is an RSPB reserve consisting of 2.5km of Old Red
Sandstone (Rousay Flags) seacliffs that rise up to 76 metres in height, and the
reserve forms part of an 8 km stretch of cliff along the West Westray coast
which is designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and a Special
Protected Area (SPA). The rock has
weathered horizontal ledges which provide ideal sites for one of the largest
colonies of seabirds in the British Isles; some 130,000 birds may be present
during the summer months making it known as a “seabird city”. We saw Fulmars, Kittiwakes, Guillemots, and
Gannets but sadly no Puffins here.
Still, we had yet to visit the southern point of Westray which
apparently is the best place in the Orkney Islands to see Puffins. We shall see!
We headed on up the cliff a little more, looking at the
spectacular cliff sides and the sheer number of birds packed into the
ledges. We turned back on ourselves and
headed back to the car near the lighthouse, and briefly said 'Good Morning' to
the guy in the back of the red van who seemed to be cheerily eating his
breakfast (!). Had he been there all
night??
Back down the very bumpy road back, we stopped off at Noltland
Castle which, I think, is probably the most northerly Castle in Britain we have
visited! It was surprisingly large and
spacious inside – not like your standard Medieval Castle, this one. Built by Sir Gilbert Balfour who rose to
become master of the household to Mary Queen of Scots following her return from
France in 1561, and the Castle was built around this time. It consisted of huge sturdy walls, massive
rooms and a rather epic spiral staircase!
We continued on towards the main town of Westray,
Pierowall. We stopped off to look at the
Westray Heritage Centre which consisted of a small Museum and a shop /
gallery. It had the “Wife of Westray”
displayed there, which was nice to see, it made a change to see something like
this here instead of being in a Museum of Scotland or even in the Museum in
Stromness or Kirkwall on mainland Orkney.
We continued on to the main place we wanted to visit, which
was the Castle O' Burrian. It isn't a
real Castle though – it's a large stack which is well known in Orkney to be one
of the best and easiest places to see Puffins up close. Apparently there are some building remains on
the top of the stack which are said to have been an early Christian hermitage,
although we didn't see any remains on there from where we were, through
binoculars.
Now on to Puffins!
Through the gate and we'd only walked a few metres and we saw quite a
lot in the water below us, before we found a few milling around on the cliffs
just in front of us. We didn't really
need binoculars to see these ones. It
was definitely worth coming here!
Apparently the best time for viewing the colony on the stack is July,
but here in the middle of June was pretty good!
The local name for the Puffin is Tammie Norrie, and the further we walked
around to the stack, the more we saw.
There were surprisingly few people here, but there were SO many little
Puffins! We must have stayed around here
watching the Puffins milling around on the stack and occasionally spotting some
on the cliffs near where we were walking along, and we managed to get a good
few photos. They are so cute!!
12 midday came long and it was time to leave. We walked slowly around back to the car,
spotted more Puffins there on the cliffs, took more photos and eventually
headed back to the jetty to get our boat back to Kirkwall. Back on the mainland, we spent a couple of
hours in Stromness checking out the shops which had been closed when we went on
Sunday, and we also visited the Stromness Museum which was a great little
Museum with all sorts of marine related items, ethnographic displays and a
'Natural History' display. It was a
quirky building set out in an old fashioned style Museum and it was great fun
to explore.
On the way back to the car, we searched for ice-cream but
there was none!! It had been sunny all
day, Stromness was right by the sea, yet there was no ice-cream. Even the shop saying it was selling ice-cream
didn't have any - what sense is this? I
know it wasn't particularly busy in town but.....an ice-cream conspiracy? In June??
I will be on the look out for ice-cream in Kirkwall when we go
there. If I can't find any there, then
there MUST be a conspiracy! Although I
do remember passing a little place elsewhere on the mainland which looked like
a very small ice-cream shop......
Anyway, back home for dinner, and the following day we could
actually have a bit of a lie-in. We had
explored all the islands we were planning to now, which left the east side of
the mainland, Kirkwall and the southern islands of Burray and South Ronaldsay
to explore over the next two days. So
far the weather looked cloudy for Thursday but not so good for Friday. We shall see!
No comments:
Post a Comment