ORKNEY TURNS ON A MARVELLOUS DAY

WEATHER: Beautiful and 21C

HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY: I’m alive

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Can’t think of a single thing-besides the hostel of death of course

WORD OF THE DAY:  Whiskey anyone-ughhhhhhh

UGHHHHHHHHHH- I woke to those furry little socks that get on your teeth after a big drinking night.  I am feeling actually okay, maybe I am still drunk, but I had my shower and happy to report I am feeling half human if not a little tired.  We departed the hostel at 8.45am this morning for our day on the island and our first stop was at Skara Brae.  Skara Brae is a large stone-built Neolithic settlement, located on the Bay of Skaill on the west coast of Mainland, Orkney.  It consists of ten clustered houses, and was occupied from roughly 3180 BCE–2500 BCE. Europe's most complete Neolithic village, Skara Brae gained UNESCO World Heritage Site status as one of four sites making up "The Heart of Neolithic Orkney." Older than Stonehenge and the Great Pyramids, it has been called the "Scottish Pompeii" because of its excellent preservation.  Eventually Skara Brae was abandoned. We do not know the true reasons for this but it is speculated that families started to move away and form more individual farmsteads rather than the more traditional communal living style that Skara Brae supported.  Whatever the reason, the village eventually became inundated with sand from the dunes nearby and eventually became hidden and forgotten.

In the winter of 1850, a severe storm hit Scotland causing widespread damage and over 200 deaths. In the Bay of Skaill, the storm stripped the earth from a large irregular knoll, known in Scottish as a howe, which had been a local landmark. When the storm cleared, local villagers found in place of the howe an intact village, albeit without roofs. For about the next 75 years there were no serious scientific investigations of Skara Brae. In one weekend in 1913, the site was plundered by a party with shovels taking away an unknown quantity of artifacts. In 1924 another storm swept away part of one of the houses and it was determined the site should be made secure and more seriously investigated. The job was given to University of Edinburgh professor Vere Gordon Childe. In mid-1927 Childe traveled to Skara Brae for the first time.  Skara Brae's inhabitants were apparently makers and users of grooved ware, a distinctive style of pottery that appeared in northern Scotland not long before the establishment of the village. The houses used earth sheltering but, being sunk into the ground, they were built into mounds of pre-existing domestic waste known as "middens". Although the midden provided the houses with a small degree of stability, its most important purpose was to act as a layer of insulation against Orkney's harsh winter climate. On average, the houses measure 40 square meters in size with a large square room containing a hearth which would have been used for heating and cooking. Given the number of homes, it seems likely that no more than fifty people lived in Skara Brae at any given time.

The dwellings contain a number of stone-built pieces of furniture, including cupboards, dressers, seats, and storage boxes. Each dwelling was entered through a low doorway that had a stone slab door that could be closed "by a bar that slid in bar-holes cut in the stone door jambs". A sophisticated drainage system was even incorporated into the village's design, one that included a primitive form of toilet in each dwelling. Seven of the houses have similar furniture, with the beds and dresser in the same places in each house. The dresser stands against the wall opposite the door, and would have been the first thing seen by anyone entering the dwelling. Each of these houses has the larger bed on the right side of the doorway and the smaller on the left. Lloyd Laing noted that this pattern accorded with Hebridean custom up to the early 20th century suggesting that the husband's bed was the larger and the wife's was the smaller. The discovery of beads and paint-pots in some of the smaller beds may support this interpretation. Additional support may come from the recognition that stone boxes lay to the left of most doorways, forcing the person entering the house to turn to the right-hand, 'male', side of the dwelling. We walked through an interpretation center that gave us the information on what they knew for sure based on what they had found in the houses and surrounds and then what they thought for other things as they didn’t find answers to all their questions when the site was excavated.  It was pretty incredible to be able to walk around the village that they discovered over 5,000 years ago and as you walked the path to the village they compared the age of the village to other big milestones in the course of history including working backwards: The first man on the moon 1969, first man in space 1961, telephone invented 1876, American Declaration of Independence 1776, Inca Civilization AD 1400, First Crusade AD1045, Fall of Rome AD 476, Birth of Christ BC/AD, Great Wall of China 220BC, The Parthenon 480BC, The Temple of Solomon 962 BC, Stonehenge 2100BC and the Pyramids of Giza 2500BC. Quite a spectacular timeline that is for sure.     

Walking distance not far from the village is a house called Skaill House.  The name ‘Skaill’ is the Old Norse for hall and most of the farmsteads north and south of the Bay of Skaill have Norse names, suggesting that the area has been continuously farmed for at least a thousand years. The southern wing of the house stands on an early Norse burial ground. The remains of a broch and another Iron Age building can still be seen on the shoreline of the Bay, and several Bronze Age burial mounds have been found closer to Skaill House.  A simple mansion house was built for Bishop George Graham in the 1620’s. This has been added to by successive Laird’s over the centuries culminating in the addition of the north tower and wing which gives the house its characteristic profile which you see today. After 3 years of careful restoration work the house was open to the public in 1997. The house is a family home presented as it was in the 1950’s. Highlights in the house include Bishop Graham’s bedroom, Captain Cook’s dinner service, paintings by the acclaimed Orkney artist Stanley Cursiter and many other items collected during the lives of the 12 Laird’s of Skaill.  Records suggest that there was a modest farmstead on the site which was part of the estate of Earl Robert Stewart during the late sixteenth century. After the trial of his notorious son, Patrick Stewart in 1614, the Earldom was broken up and the estate came under the control of Bishop Graham. Bishop Graham was a genial man and was married to the niece of the Admirable Crichton and had a large family of 9 children. He was generous to the poor and accused of being too lenient to witches and lax on adultery and incest. These charges led to him being forced to resign his position in 1638 though he was able to retain his property.

His son was the 1st Laird of Skaill House (Breckness Estate) and the estate has been passed down through 12 generations of the same family, each Laird with their own interesting story and part to play in the history of the House.  The 7th Laird was William Graham Watt who served as Laird for 56 years. William Watt discovered Skara Brae after a storm in 1850 and excavated 4 houses in the Neolithic village. He was said to be a generous landlord and entertained liberally. Notably his guests included Lady Jane Franklin, wife of Sir John Franklin who had sailed from Stromness in 1845 on his fatal voyage to discover the North West Passage.  Currently Skaill House is owned by Major Malcolm Macrae, the 12th Laird of Breckness. Major Macrae served with the Queens Own Highlanders before returning to Orkney to run the family farm. He inherited the house in 1991 and after 6 years of work the house was restored and opened to the public in June 1997.  It was like steeping back in time once we set foot in the house and we were free to take photos as we passed through all of the rooms.  For me the most impressive thing were the books in the library.  There were very old novels of all sizes and I would have just loved to have been able to pick up one of the books for a read.  Most of them were over 200 years old….. and to think that Australia is only 224 years old really puts things into perspective when you look at items that are that old. 

After an hour and a half here we travelled 25 minutes to Yesnaby on the west coast of Orkney and south of Skara Brae. It is renowned for its spectacular Old Red Sandstone coastal cliff scenery which includes sea stacks, blowholes, geos and frequently boiling seas.  Formed by layer upon layer of the Middle Old Red Sandstone that makes up most of Orkney, these cliffs are a warm, ochre colour.  We got some time to take some photos here on the cliff tops before we made our way over some moorland and then up the other side to the peninsular to get another magnificent view of the edge of the island.  Nic and Omar would be proud that I am using our ‘spirit of the turtle’ motto to get up and down these bloody big hills and I don’t care that I am always last of the group to arrive, I have been nicked name from Candice ‘the Caboose’ with this I am okay, I feel like the mother hen following all the kiddies anyway, but slow and steady wins the race and I am just happy to get up and back without holding the group up.  On the moorland we saw some tiny mauve flowers with yellow centers. These are rare Scottish primroses (primula scotica) found only in Orkney, Shetland and Caithness.  Fossil stromatolites from 390-400 million years ago can be found in the cliffs in the latter.  It really was spectacular from up here and we decided to get a group photo and poor Andy had 26 cameras’ he had a shoot on as we got bitten by little midgies that came out of the grass. 

We were then back on the road at 12.25pm and heading to one of the highlights of the day The Ring of Brodgar.  The Ring of Brodgar is a Neolithic henge and stone circleon, the largest island in Orkney.  It is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site known as the Heart of Neolithic Orkney. Most henges do not contain stone circles; Brodgar is a striking exception, ranking with Avebury (and to a lesser extent Stonehenge) among the greatest of such sites. The ring of stones stands on a small isthmus between the Lochs of Stenness and Harray. These are the northernmost examples of circle henges in Britain. Unlike similar structures such as Avebury, there are no obvious stones inside the circle, but since the interior of the circle has never been excavated by archaeologists, the possibility remains that wooden structures, for example, may be present. The site has resisted attempts at scientific dating and the monument's age remains uncertain. It is generally thought to have been erected between 2500 BC and 2000 BC, and was, therefore, the last of the great Neolithic monuments built on the Ness.  A project called The Ring of Brodgar Excavation 2008 was undertaken in the summer of the year in an attempt to settle the age issue and help answer other questions about a site that remains relatively poorly understood. The results of the excavation are still preliminary.

The stone circle is 104 meters in diameter, and the third largest in the British Isles. The ring originally comprised 60 stones, of which only 27 remained standing at the end of the 20th century. The tallest stones stand at the south and west of the ring. The stones are set within a circular ditch up to 3 meters deep, 9 meters wide and 380 meters in circumference that was carved out of the solid sandstone bedrock by the ancient residents. Technically, this ditch does not constitute a true henge as there is no sign of an encircling bank of earth and rock. Examination of the immediate environs reveals a concentration of ancient sites, making a significant ritual landscape. Within 5.2 km² there are the two circle-henges, four chambered tombs, groups of standing stones, single stones, barrows, cairns, and mounds. The immediate area has also yielded a number of flint arrowheads and broken stone mace-heads that seem to date from the Bronze Age.  Although its exact purpose is not known, the proximity of the Standing Stones of Stenness and its Maeshowe tomb make the Ring of Brodgar a site of major importance.  We got 45 minutes to walk around the stones and I can’t believe that we are allowed to touch them when you have sights like Stonehenge where they have a perimeter around them so you can’t get anywhere near them.  In their defence I guess they get a lot more traffic than what these stones do so that could have something to do with it.  A 5 minute drive down the road was the Standing Stones of Stenness.

The Standing Stones of Stenness is a Neolithic monument as well.   Various traditions associated with the stones survived into the modern era and they form part of the Heart of Neolithic Orkney World Heritage Site.  The stones are thin slabs, approximately 300 mm thick. Four, up to about 5m high, were originally elements of a stone circle of 12 stones, laid out in an ellipse about 32m diameter on a leveled platform of 44m diameter surrounded by a ditch. The ditch is cut into rock by as much as 2m depth and is 7m wide, surrounded by an earth bank, with a single entrance causeway on the north side. The entrance faces towards the Neolithic Barnhouse Settlement which has been found adjacent to the Loch of Harray. The Watch Stone stands outside the circle to the north-west and is 5.6m high. Other smaller stones include a square stone setting in the centre of the circle platform where cremated bone, charcoal and pottery were found, and animal bones were found in the ditch. The pottery links the monument to Skara Brae and Maeshowe, and the site is thought to date from at least 3000 BC.  Even in the 18th century the site was still associated with traditions and rituals, by then relating to Norse gods. It was visited by Walter Scott in 1814. Other antiquarians documented the stones and recorded local traditions and beliefs about them. One stone, known as the "Odin Stone" was pierced with a circular hole, and was used by local couples for plighting engagements by holding hands through the gap. It was also associated with other ceremonies and believed to have magical power. In December 1814 Captain W. Mackay, a recent immigrant to Orkney who owned farmland in the vicinity of the stones, decided to remove them on the grounds that local people were trespassing and disturbing his land by using the stones in rituals. He started in December 1814 by smashing the Odin Stone. This caused outrage and he was stopped after destroying one other stone and toppling another.  The toppled stone was re-erected in 1906 along with some inaccurate reconstruction inside the circle.  These are considerably larger than those found in the nearby Ring o' Brodgar.  Although it is commonly written that the monument was once made up of 12 megaliths, excavations in the 1970s suggest that the ring was never "completed", with at least one - possibly two - of the 12 stones were never erected.  Radio-carbon dates from the excavation show that the site dates from at least 3100BC, making the Standing Stones complex one of the earliest stone circles in Britain.  Like the Ring o' Brodgar, the Stenness ring has been classed as a henge monument. The stone circle was originally surrounded by a rock-cut ditch (four meters across and 2.3 meters deep) which really isn’t visible today.  You can lean on these massive stones and they don’t budge, you somehow expect them to fall over at any minute-but I guess they have stood the test of time-literally and I found them quite interesting to see.

It was lunch time being 1.30pm and we stopped at the fishing village of Stromness which is the second-biggest town in Orkney.  A long-established seaport, it has a population of approximately 2,190 residents. The old town is clustered along the characterful and winding main street, flanked with houses and shops built from local stone, with narrow lanes and alleys branching off it. First recorded as the site of an inn in the 16th century, Stromness became important during the late 17th century, when England was at war with France and shipping was forced to avoid the English Channel. Ships of the Hudson's Bay Company were regular visitors, as were whaling fleets. Large numbers of Orkney men, many of whom came from the Stromness area, served as traders, explorers and seamen for both.  We got there just after 2pm to find that lot of the food places closed at 2pm, so we all had to scramble to find places to eat as we only had 45 minutes here.  Shaz, Jem Jem and I decided we didn’t have enough time for a restaurant meal so we found a small supermarket that had a bakery section and we all got a pie and a drink to tide us over till dinner.  Some of the other guys went back to the seafront to eat there and 2 of the girls realized that they also didn’t have enough time and got their fish and chips in take away containers to bring on the bus.  So at 2.40pm we were all in the bus, except 4 people.  So we waited and waited and waited and waited and finally at 3pm, 20 minutes late the 4 missing people showed having had to wait for their lunch.  I understand that some things are out of your control, but they could have sent one person back to the bus, asked for it take away and lastly when they all got on the bus there was not ONE apology….  I think that is what irked me the most, but for the harmony of the bus, I let it slide and will make a joke about it later.  We all had to rush lunch and get take away’s while these 4 had a great feed while keeping us all waiting.  Well that is my rant over-my one pet hate is tardiness, I HATE it but we were all on board at 3pm and made our way for the last stop of the day heading back to Kirkwall the Highland Park Single Malt distillery. 

Just the thought of alcohol still made my stomach churn but as it is claimed to be the best spirit in the world, I was going to at least have a try of the stuff.  Once we were in the visitor center we were broken up into 2 groups.  We did the tasting first and then headed into the distillery afterwards.  We were given our one whiskey tasting as soon as we had sat down and even sniffing the stuff made me gag a little, but to my credit I did have a sip and them promptly offered my glass around the group to which there was a resounding no-I don’t blame them it was terrible.  Needless to say I am not a whiskey connoisseur as I don’t like the best spirit in the world.  I think I will just stick to my vodka thanks but certainly not for the next few days either.  We were shown a 7 minute video on the making of the whiskey and then started our tour.  Highland Park Single Malt is a Scotch whisky distilled by Highland Park Distillery, Kirkwall in Orkney, the most northerly whisky distillery in Scotland.  Highland Park has performed well at international spirit ratings competitions. Its 25 year single malt scotch, for example, received double gold medals at the 2007 and 2009 San Francisco World Spirits Competition.  The distillery was founded in 1798, presumably by Magnus Eunson. The name of this whisky does not refer to the area of Scotland known as The Highlands, from which Orkney is excluded, but rather to the fact that the distillery was founded on an area called 'High Park' distinguished from a lower area nearby.  Highland Park is one of the few distilleries to malt its own barley, using locally cut peat from Hobbister Moor. The peat is then mixed with heather before being used as fuel. The malt is peated to a level of 20 parts per million phenol and then mixed with unpeated malt produced on the Scottish mainland.  In 1984, Highland Park was the only whisky ever to have scored a rating of 100% by the regular tasting team of The Scotsman, a national newspaper of Scotland. Whisky reviewer and expert Michael Jackson has called it "The greatest all-rounder in the world of malt whisky."  1 tonne of malt will make approximately 114L of whiskey.  It was an interesting tour and after we got back to the visitor center we got a chance to look around at the gifts they had on sale and at the far end of the room they had a cabinet of some of the more rare whiskeys that have been distilled there.  The 2 that stood out was a bottle of whisky that was 10,000 GBP, yes GBP so that would make it around 14,000 for the bottle and that was a 50 year old bottle and the other bottle was a 1970 year for only 2300GBP, doesn’t seem so bad after the first option.  I remember when we stayed at the Burj Al Arab in Dubai a few years ago claimed that they had the most expensive cocktail in the world.   Now the Middle Eastern city lays claim and wants to be known as the place for the most expensive cocktail in the world. In a glass cabinet holding what is said to be the world’s most expensive cocktail is a 55-year-old Macallan single malt whisky that costs 7,438USD for the drink.  So far, it’s noted that only two people have paid the 27,321 dirham for a drink.  Crazy stuff right!!!!!!

It was time to head home.  It was 5pm and I was so tired.  We had had an action packed day and it was time to go home.  Some people were going to get together at 7pm to walk into town for a drink and some dinner, but Shaz, JemJem and I decided to head in a little earlier to firstly get in early means we’ll get home earlier and secondly when you eat as a group of 27 the meals can take some time to come out and I just didn’t have the patience to sit in tonight till 9.30pm.  So at 6.30pm we set off to find the fish and chip shop in the main street, which we did, we ordered a serve of fish and chips and then we took it down to the water front and ate what I think was the BEST piece of fish that I have EVER eaten.  It was SO GOOD!!!!!! Once the sun started to set the weather dropped a good 10 degrees so it was time to make our way home and we ran into the rest of the group trying to find somewhere to eat.  I am so glad that we came early and to get home, watch some TV, try and get a blog out and then hit the hay. As we walked home we could smell the odour of horse dung.  The 3 of us checked our shoes as it was really quite stench and it was that bad that right there in the street we all sniffed each other to make sure it wasn’t us, which I am happy to report it wasn’t us and made a mental note to ask Andy tomorrow what the smell was.  We also realized that we forgot to say ‘Grace’ over our fish and chips so further down the road we stopped all held hands and gave thanks for our dinner and our awesome day today-more or less.   We did realize that Kirkwall was too expensive to live, the housing was incredible prices when we had a peak at a real estate window, we figured it would be too depressing during the winter months to live here, for the single ladies the ‘man’ prospects maybe a little in the lower ratio but on the PLUS side they do have the best fish and chips in the world but I somehow don’t think that cancels out too much of the negatives enough to make a move. 

JemJem and I are starting to get the nicknames of the Nana’s, all in jest, but we are happy to take the names on board and are quickly becoming Nana JemJem and Nana Bern J Ohhhhhhhh the young people can make fun of the old and I know as I used to be there and we find that it can work in our favor at times……  and the more time that we spend together the more we are finishing each other sentences or say the same thing at the same time.  It is so cool and it just makes us laugh each time we do it-but we just can’t believe the regularity that it happens.  If we don’t look the same can that still be called a Doppelganger? 

So what an amazing day.  Orkney really turned on marvelous weather for us and every local that we spoke to today also told us how lucky we were.  I held out till 9.30pm and then it was time for this Nana to hit the hay and get some beauty sleep……