I depart for Orkney mid-morning on 28th April - only sixty hours away now - and will actually reach the place mid-afternoon on 6th May, after a very long haul in stages to Scrabster, near Thurso, on the northernmost coast of Scotland, and a two-hour ferry voyage to Stromness. I'll be there for a week, and then linger in Caithness for nearly another week.
This will be my second visit to Orkney. The first, in September 2022, was just for one night. This time, seven nights.
Here are some location maps. Click on them to enlarge the view.
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Actually, that was quite a lot packed into the short time available. I'm hoping to see so much more this time, and I'll be able to do it at a much more leisurely pace.
As an outline plan, I intend to go up at least one high hill on the Orkney Mainland for a 360-degree Orkney-wide view; to inspect every prime coastal location on the Orkney Mainland and those south-eastern islands connected to it by the Churchill Barriers; to examine the archaeological sites of Skara Brae (a neolithic village) and Maeshowe (a gigantic neolithic tomb); and to thoroughly explore the two towns Kirkwall and Stromness.
I also want to visit at least one of the offshore islands that you need a ferry to reach. As I'll be based at Stromness, and with mountainous Hoy (the next-largest island in Orkney, after Mainland) close by and visible from my caravan, it's almost a no-brainer to go there. I'll have to take Sophie in order to get around. There's scenic Rackwick Bay and the Dwarfie Stane (a hollowed-out rock that a hermit lived in once) in the north part of Hoy; in the middle, the remains of the Lyness naval base with a museum (Scapa Flow was a Home Fleet anchorage in both World Wars); and in the south of Hoy, Longhope Lifeboat Museum (I well remember the lifeboat disaster in 1969, so this would be a kind of pilgrimage) and Melsetter House (if open; a famous Arts & Crafts house).
But now Hoy has a rival. There are other large islands, all of them individual: Rousay, Shapinsay, Stronsay, Eday, Sanday, North Ronaldsay (the most north-easterly) and Westray (the most north-westerly). The last of them, Westray, is also calling to me. I have two tenuous connections with it. First, when last in Kirkwall I had a conversation with an old lady (older than me, anyway) who had lived on Westray but now lived in Kirkwall. Social Services had moved her to Orkney's 'capital' (where the modern NHS Balfour Hospital is) and she had mixed views on that. Clearly Westray had been special to her, although she appreciated her new flat in town. Secondly, the crime author Ann Cleves has a new Jimmy Perez book coming out - announced in January, to be published in October - called The Killing Stones, and it's set in Westray. Jimmy Perez was the main character in her Shetland-based crime novels, which inspired the Shetland series on TV. This latest book catches up with Jimmy a few years on, and I'll look forward to getting a copy of it when it's out. Meanwhile, I could go to Westray and spy out the land.
The only trouble may be that, unlike Hoy, the ferry times won't work for a day trip. I could fly there perhaps, from Kirkwall Airport, but (a) I don't like flying, (b) it would be mega-expensive, and (c) it's a three-mile walk from the airfield on Westray to the main village at Pierowall. Unless a minibus meets the plane. Still, it would be a memorable thing to do! And maybe I could tack on the very short hop over to Papa Westray, and forevermore hold the distinction of having flown the world's shortest scheduled plane service. (The flight takes just two minutes)
As you can see, this holiday might turn out to be rather adventurous. I'm getting excited!
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