I have always wanted to visit the Orkney Islands in northern Scotland!!!
Finally, on my third trip there we found the time to make it there. We decided the most efficient way to get there from Inverness would be to take a chartered day trip that we booked thru Viator. I highly recommend this unless you have the time in the schedule to stay the night on the islands.
We started our drive north that morning from Kelso, in the Borders of Scotland. It is a four hour drive north to Inverness and this is not including any stops!! But, considering it takes me over 8 hours to reach the southern tip of Illinois. This seemed like a quick drive with great scenery on the way!! We made a few stops before heading north at the Melrose Abbey and the little town of Falkirk. You can read all about our time in the borders in my last blog post!!
We drove right through the highlands of Scotland! You could not ask for better scenery or smoother highways. Take your time and make sure to stop at the Queens View near Pictlochry. There is small visitor center and cafe just a few miles off the main highway. If you take the short, little hike up to a platform you get amazing views across Loch Tummel to Schiehallion. It is reported that Queen Victoria took tea at this same spot in 1866. She fell in love with the views and the site was named after her. But, the viewpoint actually commemorates Queen Isabella, the wife of Robert the Bruce who ruled Scotland between 1303 and 1329. With a nice, clear day you can see for miles!!!
From here we drove about 35 minutes out of our way, through the Allean Forest, to the Outlander filming site for the fictitious Craig Na Dun near the little town of Kinnoch Rannoch. For those of you who are not as obsessed with Outlander as I am; in the books by Diana Gabaldon and the show on Starz, there is a large ring of standing stones called Craig Na Dun. This is the supposed site where Claire “falls through time” and ends up in the 1700’s of Scotland. We were able to find the actual filming location for this site. The fake, giant stones from the show are not there any more. But, that does not diminish the effect at all. This little glen on the top of a hill in someones farm land is not east to find. So, I’m planning to write an entire blog just on this site and how to get there. So stay tuned… It was WELL worth the drive there. Can you picture the standing stones there, the wind blowing, the stones humming, an eerie feeling in the air????
We drove the rest of the way through the highlands to our AirBnB in Inverness arriving after 9pm. The only really sad part of this day was eating McDonald’s for dinner that night!! Ugh. I was appalled. We seriously missed dinner so many nights on this trip because we were so busy and had plenty of snacks in the car. So, we didn’t need to make many stops for refreshments. The sun doesn’t go down until almost 10:30pm and most restaurants and pubs stop serving food at 9pm. So, it seemed like we were always rolling into town after 9pm because we had made too many stops for the day and you don’t realize how late it is because the sun is still up. So, McDonald’s it was…. It was either that or pizza delivery. So, at least I had a salad.
We were scheduled to stay two nights at our AirBnB in Inverness, Scotland. It was PERFECT!! I wish we could duplicate this place for everywhere we visit. It was a super cute 2-bedroom, ground floor condo, in a residential area only a few miles from downtown. The bathroom and other rooms were very clean and well decorated. We had a great nights sleep and got up very early to catch the bus to the Orkneys.
It was only a 10 minute drive to the bus station in the morning. But, it took us a few more minutes to find parking and pay the parking fees. Which, I guess we didn’t pay enough for because we ended up with an emailed parking ticket for 60 pounds and a fee from Hertz for another 42 pounds for the ‘inconvenience of the process’. Geez!!
The day trip we took was scheduled to be more than 9 hours. It included a 2.5 hour drive to the most northern point in mainland Scotland, John O’Groats, and back. Plus, a guided bus tour all around the Orkney islands. Once at John O’Groats we had a few minutes to take some pictures and visit the gift shops before we boarded the 45 minute passenger ferry over to the Islands of Orkney.
There is so much to see in the Orkney’s. But, we only had a few hours and we were at the mercy of the bus route. Our bus driver/tour guide was fabulous. He pretty much talked the entire ride pointing out the different islands we traversed and the announcing all of the lochs and inlets on the way. The Orkney’s consist of approximately 70 islands, 20 of which are inhabited. These islands have been inhabited for more than 8,500 years. These lands have been inhabited by the Mesolithic and Neolithic tribes, the Picts, and later the Norse from Norway before being overtaken by the Scots in 1472.
Currently, there are over 20,000 people residing on the islands. We made a stop for some shopping and refreshments in the Kirkwall on the largest island, Mainland as it is called. This is a thriving, quite busy city!! Over 9000 of Orkney’s inhabitants live there. Kirkwall is one of Orkney’s busiest ferry ports. Large car-transport ferries arrive daily to and from Aberdeen and Lerwick. In our hour stop there, we did a little shopping and visited the towns beautiful St. Magnus cathedral. This magnificent cathedral was built starting in 1137 and belongs to the Presbyterian Church of Scotland.
I was unaware how much The Orkneys Islands played a part in WWI and WWII. Our bus driver gave us a great overview of the Royal Naval base at Scapa Flow while we were driving around the islands. Scapa Flow is one of the largest natural harbors in the world. I’d love to go into all the details. But, I think you will just have to go there yourself to hear the entire story yourself.
I was mainly interested in visiting Orkney for the iron-age archaeological sites. While there are many sites to visit, we were only taken to two of the major sites on our short bus trip. But, they are definitively the two most important to see. The Ring of Brodgar and Skara Brae.
The Ring of Brodgar is a Neolithic henge or stone circle in Orkney. It is thought to have been erected between 2500BC and 2000BC. There are 27 of the 60 original stones still standing in an impressive 341 feet diameter. As a lover of standing stones, these were certainly impressive!!
This small isthmus in Orkney has an abundance of stones and henges of importance in a small area. Within two square miles there are two-stone circles, four chambered tombs, a group of standing stones, single stones, barrows, cairns, and several mounds. Our nice bus driver pointed these out as we drove past them at a slightly slower speed than usual. But, there just wasn’t enough time to stop and see them all. There were also several archaeological digs on-going in this area at this time. So, more sites are being uncovered every year!!
Skara Brae
Our next and last stop was to the stone-built Neolithic settlement known as Skara Brae!!! This UNESCO World Heritage Site, on the west coast of the Mainland, is an eight home settlement that was built sometime between 3180BC to 2500BC.
According to the lovely guidebook I purchased at the ticket counter, There was a severe storm in the winter of 1850, killing over 200 people and stripped away a large knoll at the site. This in turn, revealing a village consisting of a number of small houses without roofs. Excavation began to reveal four of these homes at that time by a private supporter. But, excavation stopped in 1868 due to lack of funds. A further storm in 1924 revealed even more of these little homes!! The site was then secured and proper excavation began in earnest by the University of Edinburgh in 1927.
It is absolutely amazing to see how these inhabitants lived more than 5000 years ago. Almost all of these homes had stone beds, stone dressers for displaying items, and stone hearths for cooking. There was a wonderful re-creation of one of the homes you could tour on your way out to the dig site completely made of stone.
Our last stop before we boarded the ferry back to mainland Scotland, was the Italian Chapel. This little chapel was built entirely by the Italian prisoners of war during WWII. These prisoner were there to help built The Churchill Barriers. These barriers on the east side of Scapa Flow were built to limit the number of ways the ships in the harbor could be accessed. These barriers also help to connect the islands together. The prisoners built this Roman Catholic Chapel using materials taken from their temporary lodging on the islands. The corrugated metal huts make up the exterior and leftover concrete from The Churchill barriers was used for the rest to cover the metal exterior and make this building look more like a chapel.
What to wear to the Orkney Islands??? You definitely need a good raincoat and wellies!! I personally love my Hunter wellies. But, any good waterproof wellies or hiking boots will do if you plan to get good pictures! My kelly green raincoat has lasted me though several Scotland and Ireland holidays and I wear it all the time at home. It looks great in pictures and it has big pocket for my phone and small camera too!!
