Rackwick

One of the posts on my list of posts not hitherto written is one about my visit to Rackwick on the mountainous island of Hoy, the second-largest in the Orkney archipelago. On the way there, I checked out the Dwarfie Stane, which I have already written about - see my post The Dwarfie Stane on 30th June 2025. But Rackwick was my prime destination in the northern half of the island. Here are two location maps:

Click on these to enlarge them, Same with the photos that follow. 

I was pitched at Stromness (upper left in the top map), and had to drive to Houton on the A964 to catch the ferry to Lyness on Hoy. I arrived in the late morning, and had about six hours to see whatever I could. But first stop had to be Emily's, a roadside café, for an early lunch. This was the card I picked up:

And this was how it was on the day. It was sunny and mild: warmer than you'd expect for a Far North shoreline spot in springtime. Even so, I sat inside. 

I beat whatever off-the-ferry rush there might have been, and was able to chat a bit with Emily herself, in between her cooking. I chose something heartwarming, sustaining, and very yummy. 

Orkney is a foody place (be warned) and although Hoy might seem a bit off the beaten track (it isn't really) you cannot go hungry, wherever you may stray. That lot was delicious, but very filling. However, I had some walking in mind to reach the Dwarfie Stane, and then at Rackwick, so I was confident of burning off some of those calories!

In the loo were some Second World War helmets, begging to be tried on. I couldn't resist.

Now who can hold a somewhat heavy Leica X Vario in one hand, and take a picture, while applying lipstick with the other? I can!

That's the very camera whose shutter failed later the same day, and was eventually repaired. I just managed to photograph what I wanted to on Hoy before the thing became inoperative.  

On to Rackwick. Now this really is a remote place. There is one narrow road in, and you absolutely need your own transport. The nearest proper shop is twenty miles away, at Longhope far down in the south of Hoy. So a forty-mile round trip. But then everyone living at Rackwick values the hideaway atmosphere of the place. The resident population is scattered about in little houses, some of them with turf or flat stones on the roofs, so that the winter storms can't blow them off. The place is much visited by adventurous walkers, school parties, and climbers wanting to scale the old Man of Hoy, reachable by a three-mile slog through the heather. (I didn't attempt it, not even for the stunning pictures I'd have got from the cliffs)

So here's the road approach to Rackwick. It's all brown or grey hillside until a broad patch of green comes into view, where the houses are.

The car park was surprisingly full. But apart from an obvious field study group of students, and one or two casual tourists like me, Rackwick seemed deserted. Excellent. I wanted a solitary communion with the bay. I sat in Sophie for a few minutes, to drink it all in. I'd wanted to come here for years; decades.

Time to walk. No jacket needed. Just the red hat. The shore beckoned. I set off down a track, passing a couple of low stone buildings, reminders of a time - long gone - when there was a working community here, and not just seasonal visitors and the odd resident with sufficient other income.

I was surprised that there wasn't more sand visible. All I could see were large pebbles. This was a calm day, but it struck me that the shore must be a very noisy place when heavy waves crash down on those pebbles and suck them this way and that. 

For now it was very peaceful. If I'd had the time to spare, I would have sat down and just let the sun and the peace sink into me. Many people have said this is a special spot, a spiritual place, a place for healing. Well, I needed no healing, and I wasn't spiritual, but nevertheless I did feel that here you could forgot all worries. It was so serene. I found myself getting very thoughtful.

I had planned a triangular route: car park to the south-east end of the bay; then along the beach to the north-west end; then back through the cottages to the car park. Because of the large and unstable pebbles, it was clearly best to avoid the beach and instead follow a path that kept to the turf above. It had the advantage of a double view: sea and cliffs to my left, and the Rackwick valley to my right.

Rackwick's most famous modern resident was Peter Maxwell Davies the composer - here's a piece about him from the NorthLink Ferries magazine:

He lived in one of the small cottages up on the hillside - ideal for a composer who needed to pound on the piano keyboard without disturbing his neighbours! In or near the car park was a board showing the location of each habitable house, there being no road names here:

I wondered which cottage? Had it been the one called Crowsnest? I still don't know. Here's a link to an expanded NorthLink Ferries article on his life in Orkney (on Hoy and on Sanday, another island to the north, where he died): https://www.northlinkferries.co.uk/orkney-blog/sir-peter-maxwell-davies-in-orkney/. 

Next, the walk back to the car park, using a tarred road no less, and passing houses that showed signs of modernity, and civilised living, and were not just tumbledown stone dwellings. But first a look back at the bay. Would I ever see it again?

I hope you can see the magic of Orkney, at least as I apprehend it. Hoy is the only mountainous island in the archipelago. It's the one with the best scenery. But some of the other islands have small hills, lochs and impressive cliffs too. Plus a castle or two, or a pretty fishing village. I couldn't get to them, although some were visible offshore from the Orkney Mainland. Each would need a ferry crossing and a day for exploration, and I didn't have the time in only a week's visit. I'll have to go back. 

Escaping an obsession

I now have a very long list of unwritten blog posts. I am so looking forward to hunkering down for the winter, and publishing at least a few of these. Just two more weeks' caravanning, and then I can make a start. It's hopeless to try while on holiday. Maybe I could dash a post off on the first evening, but thereafter photography will consume my time, and the blog can't get a look in. 

If you blog yourself, you may have the knack of writing a piece that perfectly expresses what you want to say in just a few minutes. I don't have that gift. I have to allow at least two hours per post. If it's all text, with no supporting pictures, then there will be a lot of words to churn out, with - inevitably - infelicitous turns of phrase and typos to correct. I want to make it all flow well. Elegance is beyond me, but attention to good grammar and proper punctuation is not, and I will not be lazy about writing a post that can, at least, pass ordinary tests for acceptable English.

So what is the obsession that I have escaped? It's the adulation of all things Leica. The longing to own and use a Leica camera started for me in 1973, and it's taken over fifty years to run its course. But it's over now. Note that I haven't turned against the brand. Not at all. But my attitude towards Leica products has changed. I had allowed myself to be seduced or infatuated by Leica's luxury cameras, almost seeing them in a holy light. That's now gone, and I feel better for it. 

I have owned three Leicas: and I thought my next camera would be another, yet more expensive Leica. Maybe still not a new one, but a step up from what I had been using. And then on and on, until old age would curtail my ability to travel and take pictures. Ironically, less travelling would free up more money to spend on even more desirable Leica equipment. There might be no stop to it. There's a Leica World around which I had been circling without fully plunging in. Leica had constantly drawn my attention to that World. It was like a whirlpool. It was enticing, inspiring, rather exclusive, definitely elitist, and peopled by some big-name photographers. But I won't be joining them now. 

What has happened? Nothing sudden or traumatic. It's an accumulation of little disappointments over the span of several years, but recently coming to a head. And finally, a realisation that I had spent money and energy on Leica cameras without achieving significantly better results than I'd had with other makes of camera. There had been an improvement, but no quantum leap. I'd used my Leicas with pleasure, but user-pleasure didn't necessarily translate into exhibition-quality pictures. The shots I took with my Wetzlar-made Leicas were beyond question very good; but in my vast archive of pictures there were plenty of photos taken with other cameras that could stand comparison with them. I'm not talking specifically about outstanding lens sharpness and the capture of extraordinary detail. There's more to consider. I'm talking about the consistent creation of interesting and arresting pictures, with sufficient sharpness but no more. I think overall pictorial effectiveness is much more important than any technical metric. So any good make might be suitable. Some of those other cameras I had used were from way back: I'm thinking particularly of a Canon I bought in 2006, and a Nikon I bought in 2008. And the camera that has outlasted every other since 2009, to which I always return, carries the famous Leica red dot but is a restyled Panasonic. 

Earlier this year one of my Leicas developed a shutter fault a few days into a major holiday. It was my long five and a half week trip from Sussex to Northern Scotland, with a magical week on Orkney. You can imagine my frustration. I had to resort to the camera on my Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra phone. That phone performed excellently. Thank goodness it did! I didn't like the awkwardness of taking photos with it, but it more than did the job, and I especially appreciated its telephoto abilities. 

On my return home, I had the Leica's shutter repaired - actually, replaced - at very reasonable cost. But some psychological damage had been done. A device that I thought was so well-built that it might outlast me had faltered. It hadn't stood up to heavy use, when it should have. My faith in it was blown. Ongoing, what might fail next? It was no longer completely reliable. One thing that I didn't immediately notice was that opening up the camera for repair had somehow rendered a thumbwheel inoperative. In other words, fixing one thing had created a new issue. Perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised. It's like having work done on any complicated device or machine. Such as replacing a major part on a car. It's never quite the same afterwards. 

I had no idea why that thumbwheel wouldn't now work. Nor was I keen on trying to get it fixed: that seemed like throwing away yet more money for an uncertain outcome. The thumbwheel had controlled several things, none of which I'd used in ordinary daytime photography. That's why it took time to realise that I'd lost some functionality. There was now no way of making a time-exposure, as I couldn't set the shutter to open for more than one second, whether I did it manually or automatically. So no more shots of starry night skies! I didn't do a lot of that, but it was still annoying. The camera wasn't 'crippled', but its scope had narrowed. 

Meanwhile my Samsung phone, and (once home) my Leica-badged Panasonic camera, had together come up trumps, and between them had delivered thousands of memorable shots. Moreover, they were both fully-functional.

I awoke from the Leica Dream. I hadn't been let down by Leica, nor had using my Leica cameras been a dead end. But the spell was broken. And with that came a sense of liberation. 

I still considered Leica a name to salute, but not necessarily to revere. And now I was free to consider other makes. So if I were at this moment in the market for another camera, I would probably look closely at a Nikon mirrorless with a 24mm prime lens. That's the focal length I use most. And for my occasional telephoto shots, I might as well stick with the phone. A minimum kit, reasonably compact and lightweight, and at far less cost than a new Leica. No gear-worship or elitism involved. Sorry, Leica.