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Orkney (The Orkney Islands)

taras

taras

Least Haunted
Joined
Oct 27, 2002
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Edinburgh
I'm going. Anything I should look out for?

These are all on my (and my flatmate's) "list" so far:

- Ring of Brodgar, Maes Howe & surrounding sites
- Skara Brae
- Burgar Hill (Wind farm) Visitor Centre
- Stromness, Kirkwall
- Possibly the Italian Chapel and Scapa Flow bridge thing (it's a bit far)

Anything else I should see? I mean, obviously there is, but there seems to be so much that I want only the very best!

We will be based in Stromness (Seems pretty central to all the best places).
 
See also:

http://www.robertlomas.com/Orkney/compiled.html

http://www.orkneyjar.com/folklore/

esp.:
http://www.orkneyjar.com/folklore/ghosts/

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I'm not sure how useful this is to your travles but there is also:

The Stronsay Beast
http://members.fortunecity.com/yvonneoforkney/beast/

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I read "The Boy with the Bronze Axe":

http://www.trussel.com/prehist/fidler.htm

a number of times when I was a kid and I really loved it and I'm really jealous of your trip :(

I am sad that it doesn't seem to be very easily available via Amazon or anywhere (and the prices are crazy - I have to check that my copy is safe and sound):
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140305637/
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140305637/
http://dogbert.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?tn=The+Boy+with+the+Bronze+Axe
http://www.bookfinder.com/dir/i/Boy_with_the_Bronze_Axe/0140305637/
 
Emps, I read The Boy with the Bronze Axe several times too, albeit 8 years ago, and I am over the moon with excitement about visiting all the places :)

Thanks for the links! I'm planning to get lots of photos... will put the good ones online when I come back!

Oh, also, our school lent us each a copy of the book (in 1995, we had to give it back though), and they seemed quite new copies, so there must be some out there somewhere - although there is only one copy in all of Edinburgh's libraries.
 
Here is some of what we got up to.

Arriving by ferry, Old Man of Hoy (9pm)
Maes Howe chambered cairn (no photos allowed inside)
Stones of Stenness, mountains of Hoy in the background
Stones of Stenness
Ring of Brodgar (properly pronounced brod-yar)
Runes at Brodjar
Burgar Hill wind farm (involved a lot of rather exciting driving to get there, driving into Home Farms and reversing into ditches!)
Broch of Gurness (end of Day 1, I was a bit tired/pissed off from driving around all day by this point)
Simulacra alien head! Below Birsay cliffs
Victoria St (main street), Stromness (exciting to drive up, especially at night)
Stromness the next morning, from a fishing boat!
Sea fishing in Scapa Flow
Scapa Flow that evening
Leaving Stromness
Bye bye Hoy

Not bad for three days and a budget of about 200 quid for the whole trip :)

Brown's Hostel is really good, by the way, if anyone is thinking of going. Don't stay in a hotel; it's just like staying at your realtives' house and is only 10 quid a night.

Sea fishing was £15 for the trip. Getting into the neolithic sites was free for us because we knew the guides, but you can get a pass for £11 (I think) that lets you into most of them.

Driving in Orkney is amazing fun because there are hardly any cars, and the roads are straight for miles and miles. The hilly country lanes are also great fun. Just watch out for the sudden right-turns and increased traffic in villages (we almost had a nasty prang... ahah...)
 
Everything in Orkney is amazing to visit, did you go to the italian chapel in the end?
 
we stuck to the west mainland and the neolithic sites. next time we will do the ww2 things, and perhaps get a ferry out somewhere. i heard there was a reconstructed broch on papa westray.
 
Midhowe Broch on Rousay is pretty impressive too. It's not a big island but it's also got several chambered cairns, including the huge Midhowe cairn.

Orkney's a place I want to go back to.

Faggus, I though Kirkwall was OK.

The weather's interesting as well....:)
 
Same here, Timble!

Gorgeous pics, taras!

Must dig out my pics and see if there are any worth posting here. I can remember, when leaving on the ferry from Kirkwall, there was a headland which was reminsicent of W C Fields' profile . . .

Carole
 
AndroMan said:
And they throw in the amazing multi-coloured skyscapes for free! :D
Click to expand...

Like so!


We visited in May (not this year) and because it's so far north compared to the mainland, I just loved the glow in the sky all night through - it never really got dark at all.

Carole
 
If anyone visits north ronaldsay, say hello to my uncle in the bird observatory :p
 
Did you get to Scara Brae, Taras?

The whisky distillery is worth a visit too . . . (hic)

Carole
 
Orknexit? Back to their Viking roots.

The Orkney Islands could change their status in the UK or even become a self-governing territory of Norway under new proposals.

A motion will go before the council next week to investigate "alternative forms of governance". Council leader James Stockan said Orkney does not get fair funding with its current relationship within the UK. He wants to look at Crown Dependencies like the Channel Islands and overseas territories like the Falkland Islands.

He suggested another possible future could be like the Faroe Islands - which is a a self-governing territory of Denmark. Councillor Stockan told BBC Radio Scotland there were many areas where Orkney was being "failed dreadfully" by both the UK and Scottish governments.

He said: "We are really struggling at the moment, we have to replace the whole ferry fleet which is older than the CalMac fleet. We are denied the things that other areas get like RET (Road Equivalent Tariff) for ferry fares. And the funding we get from the Scottish government is significantly less per head than Shetland and the Western Isles to run the same services - we can't go on as we are."

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-66066448
 
ramonmercado said:
Orknexit? Back to their Viking roots.

The Orkney Islands could change their status in the UK or even become a self-governing territory of Norway under new proposals.

A motion will go before the council next week to investigate "alternative forms of governance". Council leader James Stockan said Orkney does not get fair funding with its current relationship within the UK. He wants to look at Crown Dependencies like the Channel Islands and overseas territories like the Falkland Islands.

He suggested another possible future could be like the Faroe Islands - which is a a self-governing territory of Denmark. Councillor Stockan told BBC Radio Scotland there were many areas where Orkney was being "failed dreadfully" by both the UK and Scottish governments.

He said: "We are really struggling at the moment, we have to replace the whole ferry fleet which is older than the CalMac fleet. We are denied the things that other areas get like RET (Road Equivalent Tariff) for ferry fares. And the funding we get from the Scottish government is significantly less per head than Shetland and the Western Isles to run the same services - we can't go on as we are."

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-66066448
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I'm not sure any decision by the local council would have any legal clout... If it does, then I'm up for South West Surrey/Waverley becoming a part of Norway too.
 
The Orkney Islands is a place I've always considering visiting ... if I wasn't such a wimp about the cold.
It is cold that far north in the North Sea?
 
Stormkhan said:
The Orkney Islands is a place I've always considering visiting ... if I wasn't such a wimp about the cold.
It is cold that far north in the North Sea?
Click to expand...
The weather is fairly changeable ('four seasons in a day') and can be extreme in terms of wind and storms, especially in the winter. I'd say it's cooler in the summer than most of the mainland and winters are cold but milder than you might expect. If visiting, do so in summer - apart from the weather being more clement/tolerable then, logistics can be difficult in winter as a lot of flights and boats will get cancelled at short notice due to weather conditions.
 
James_H said:
The weather is fairly changeable ('four seasons in a day') and can be extreme in terms of wind and storms, especially in the winter. I'd say it's cooler in the summer than most of the mainland and winters are cold but milder than you might expect. If visiting, do so in summer - apart from the weather being more clement/tolerable then, logistics can be difficult in winter as a lot of flights and boats will get cancelled at short notice due to weather conditions.
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Summer temperatures are ok. But as James_H pointed out, the wind can blow fiercely.

I remember trying to cycle down the hills above Evie and to my utter amazement, my bicycle would not move down the slope because the wind was pushing me upwards !

The local folklore is fascinating. I highly recommend this website : www.orkneyjar.com
 
We were taken on a tour by a local birdwatcher back in the early 1980s. He quickly realised that we weren't that interested in fulmars, stonechats and merlins (although I'd be much more interested now), and he took us to see Stenness, Skara Brae and inside Maes Howe. We also saw a souterrain and some stromatolites, which were completely fascinating. I doubt that you'd get such a comprehensive tour nowadays.
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
Well Orkney was under Norwegian/Danish control until 1472, when it became part of Scotland.

Councillor Stockan cites a lack of funding from the Scottish Government and said the islands could become like the Faroe Islands, a territory of Denmark, but also a country in its own right, and self-governed.

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/orkney-could-leave-scotland-uk-30374370
Click to expand...

We'll make that the last post on government and governance, funding and councillors, please.

This is the Fortean Travel section.

I've already had complaints about this and removed your previous post on whether the islands are 'better off' as part of Scotland.
 
Yithian said:
We'll make that the last post on government and governance, funding and councillors, please.

This is the Fortean Travel section.

I've already had complaints about this and removed your previous post on whether the islands are 'better off' as part of Scotland.
Click to expand...

Blimey. It was just meant to be a jocular reference to The Wicker Man. :-(
Acknowledged that the political decisions of Orkney are Hors de combat.

​

 
Stormkhan said:
The Orkney Islands is a place I've always considering visiting ... if I wasn't such a wimp about the cold.
It is cold that far north in the North Sea?
Click to expand...
I went in May 2022. It was a pretty straight 14 degrees most days, windy and with occasional horizontal rain.

But then, I live in Yorkshire, where that's normal summer weather as well.
 
I should provide an update to my 2004 post to say I did go back a second (and third!) time to see the rest of the stuff. Still haven't seen everything though - Tomb of the Eagles and Mine Howe (the one where you get wheeled in on your back, on a trolley) in particular.

Something I didn't mention in my post 19 years ago was a strange, almost out-of-body experience I had at the pier in Stromness on the first night. Possibly just because I was tired from travelling - possibly down to the mental overload of looking out on nothing but a pitch black sea and sky - but it felt like I was leaving my body. Years later I connected with the same feeling in the ethereal music and artwork of Panda Bear's single "Last Night at the Jetty".

There was also a mild coincidence when we went to a community ceilidh there later in the week: when we walked in, the then-rector of the University of Edinburgh (where me and my travelling companions were students at the time) was on the dancefloor!

@eburacum I suspect you could still get a comprehensive tour today if you chanced upon and befriended the right local!
 
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By coincidence, I just came across mention of a terrifying orcadian water monster, the nuckalavee (cognate with nixie, nøkken, knucker - norse names for a malevolent water spirit with perhaps horselike features.)

Here's a picture (James Torrance, 1859-1916) to give you nightmares.

1688782029910.png
 
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