Orkney – just passing through

25th June 2023

There are many beaches like Skaill on Orkney where it is possible to get the van just a few metres from an almost deserted beach. I’m only in transit through Orkney on this visit, as I spent a few weeks here just over two years ago. It seems a pity that it’s a short visit, as last night and this morning it has been at its very best.

When I last visited, it was in late May, and was unseasonably cold. The islands were also very empty, just a few weeks after the last lockdown of the pandemic. Usually tourists who come and go by ferry or plane are few compared to Orkney’s main source of income from the industry, the cruise ships. On the ferry I spoke to a local who said to me that typically in the high season there are 8,000 visitors a day from cruises.

As I read this morning more than 5 coaches pulled in for a five minute beach-taster, and the obligatory photographs of the beach, all the dis-embarkers clad in full winter outdoor clothing; though it was windy, it was 18C and sunny.

I know anyone reading this will immediately want to know what I was reading.. a novel about islands of course, more specifically climate-change-dystopian, which there seem to be many of at the moment. More on it later in the week.

We drove to the next beach to the north, about 3 miles, to the Bay of Marwick, where I wanted to hike the cliff track to the Kitchener Memorial. The Memorial commemorates the lives of 737 crew lost from the HMS Hampshire, which sank in 1916, more details in the picture below.

There were plenty of reasons not to hurry on the trek, even with the threatening cloud approaching..

I got chatting to an old guy in a VW T5 campervan who splits his time between homes in the Algarve and in Leek, Staffordshire – all his money is in his properties that he needs to sell, but can’t get his wife, who has quite a separate life though still married, to agree to. who was just heading back from Shetland.

At the cliff a supine woman pointed out two puffins which we watched for a while.

It was after 2 pm when we got back to the van. I knew rain was coming, and though it started showery it soon set in, abating just in time for a walk in the other direction, to some derelict fishermen’s huts from 1890 when their boats were moored there.