Orkeny day 2 and 3

Tuesday, May 22. Arrived in Inverness

Seems like a while since I’ve posted. I blame the pokey internet in Orkney, which was really glacial. I suppose I could live somewhere that didn’t have internet at all, but having it be spotty and slow, kicking you off every few minutes, would drive me bonkers.

Now we’re in Inverness, a much bigger, more tourist friendly town. You can tell by the stores selling tartan everything!

On Sunday we took a long ferry ride up to North Ronaldsay, the northernmost of the Orkney Islands. (There are around 80 of them with 20 inhabited.) I wanted to go there mainly because I have a character in an upcoming book with family ties there, and I wanted to check it out.

Part of the reason I placed my character there was because it was so remote I figured I had a good chance of not having a bunch of readers who’ve gone there and would notice all of the errors I commit. It didn’t dawn on me that it would be just as difficult for me to get there!

You can either go on Monday and come back on Friday, or take one of the bi-monthly ferries that run only in the summer. The one we took was supposed to be the third of the year, but it was the first due to a harsh spring. Our weather wasn’t anything to write home about, but it wasn’t lashing rain, and the seas were calmish.

The trip took three hours, which didn’t seem daunting, given we’ve been on twelve hour ferry rides. We didn’t realize there’s a luxury ferry and a bare-bones one. We got the bare-bones this time.

So small they had to crane the cars onto the ferry from the dock in North Ronaldsay

This was the luxury upper saloon - hard benches for a total of 6 hours of sitting

We arrived, all excited about seeing their unique sheep. Yes, we are easily entertained! These sheep were cast off the grass a couple of hundred years ago and prevented from grazing on what sheep always eat. I’m not sure how the farmers knew this would work, but rather than starve, the sheep started eating seaweed. Over time, their systems have adjusted so that they get ill when they eat grass for any length of time.

So I was all charged up to see these freaky sheep only to learn they bring them all up to graze on grass during lambing season. Boo! We took a six hour round trip to see regular sheep eating regular grass.

This is what we thought we would see. This is a photo from an exhibit in the bird observatory

They say the North Ronaldsay sheep have a very unique taste, which I was more than happy to try. But the only place to eat is in the cafe at the lighthouse (four tables), where the most exciting thing was the tuna with sweetcorn sandwich I had. It wasn’t bad, but I’m not likely to be opening a can of sweetcorn the next time I want a tuna sandwich.

Luckily, the lighthouse was very nice, the tallest land-based one in the UK. I forget how many steps, but I think it was around 275, straight up, no resting spots like many of them have.

View from the top of the lighthouse

Our tour guide was worth the time and expense of the whole trip. Actually, he was the most interesting and charming person I’ve met in Scotland. 

Billy Muir is celebrating his 50th year as the lighthouse keeper of North Ronaldsay this year, still able to wear his spiffy National Lighthouse Board uniform. Now he’s what they call a retained lighthouse keeper, one of a handful of people throughout Scotland who check in once a month to make sure the automated systems are working and nothing awful has happened since the last visit. For his efforts he receives one thousand pounds per year. Not much to live on!

He had a charming, dry sense of humor, twinkling blue eyes and seemed like the kind of guy you’d love to spend a night at the pub with. God knows he must be the George Clooney of North Ronaldsay, now that they’re down to fifty people, most of them over eighty.

There is a nice hostel for bird watchers, which they say is usually booked. But it would be culturally stultifying to live there. No restaurants, grocery stores, shops, movies, no church, no fraternal organizations. Spotty internet that goes out for days at a time. They serve alcohol at the bird observatory, but that’s not the same as having a local pub with your friends and family populating it. 

The Scottish government provides support to keep the airport open, to maintain the satellite towers so they have phone service, and there’s a full-time nurse practitioner, with weekly visits from the doctor. But the government is going to have to lose interest soon. It’s got to be hard to keep a dying island going when you’re cutting back on health care and police on the mainland.

They’d always had a primary school, but there was only one little girl for the last few years. Her family moved back to Kirkwall, so they’ve had to close it and lay off the two, yes, two teachers. One kid had two teachers. Kinda nuts. But those women had to leave too, since there aren’t other jobs.

I’m guessing they’ll eventually just keep the bird observatory open, and charge people the real cost of a plane ticket. Right now it’s less than $20, which is madness, given they have to have an air traffic controller and fire fighters.

We hired a guide to drive us around. Nice guy. Kind of ancient, and not very gabby. He’s pretty much retired now, but he used to be the airport manager, the road crew for the whole island, a firefighter, and a farmer. He said there wasn’t anyone who didn’t have two or three jobs, but that’s pretty much in the past. When I asked how often he left the island, he quickly replied, “As often as I can.” I couldn’t say I blamed him.

 

very desolate coastline

On Monday, we rented a car and poked around Kirkwall a bit, finally getting a taste of real Scottish weather. It got up to around 43, but that was the coldest 43 I’ve ever experienced. Carolyn had on two coats, one of them down, and she was still shivering. But that might be because of her cold, which she got about five days ago. Normally, she can fight one off in a couple of days with little trouble. But this one has really kicked her butt. She’s a hearty little soul, though, never complaining. I started showing symptoms of it last night, and I can guarantee I will not be so stoic <s>.

We spent the day visiting two farming museums, both of which made you really glad you weren’t a farmer in the 19th century. The land on the Orkney Mainland isn’t horrible, but it’s certainly not lush. No trees, so there’s no natural windbreak for that ferocious wind off the North Sea. I’d be surprised if the wind didn’t pull the plants right out of the ground!

Both places had peat fires going, which also made you happy you didn’t have to heat your house with peat. I like the smell, but it’s a very smoky fire that doesn’t get very hot.

Smoky peat fire. Can't have been good for anyones health.

This was the inside of the kiln connected to the barn - used to help dry the harvest

They had some early photos of local farmers and they looked like they were wearing all of their clothes, every piece of which was a ragged, holey mess. The men’s pants were so worn and tattered they had several inches of calf showing where the pants had been eaten away. 

There was literally nothing about the exhibit that made it seem like a charming, tranquil way of life. When people are yapping about the good old days, they should remember that this kind of poverty was endemic in the good old days. I know a lot of people still go hungry in America, but these people looked like they were truly starving, and they were growing the food! Sobering stuff. If only things had been better in Scotland seventy-five years ago, the mother of the current president wouldn’t have had to emigrate, so we’re all the poorer for that.

After we dried out and warmed up at Helgi’s on the waterfront (pulled pork burrito for me, monkfish curry for CDN), we took the midnight ferry back to Aberdeen, then hopped on ScotRail for the trip to Inverness. It was gorgeous countryside. Rich and fertile and filled with contented cows and fluffy sheep and lambs.

Off to Skye tomorrow. I’ll post pictures of the first Skye terrier I see.

SXM and CDN