Orkney skies are perfect soft turquoise blues and yellows. The winds mean the skies can be ever changing and quietly dramatic. On our first few days there was calm, even over at the Churchill Barriers over Scapa Flow, where the British navy was stationed during the war. And where there is a tiny chapel built by the Italian prisoners of war. The next day we wandered down the historic street of Stromness to visit the museum there – that houses incredible array of artefacts from all across the world, there was trade via the Hudson Bay company and the explorer
Famously there is the ancient Ring of Brodgar and the archaeological site of the Brodgar of Ness.
Kirkwall is the Orkney capital, and there are so many classy shops here. Also the impressive Kirkwall cathedral.
Up the west coast of Orkney there is the prehistoric Skara Brae. The winds got up on a drive up to Birsay Earls Palace ruins. Over on the east coast there is beautiful beaches and the new Sheila Fleet jewellery galleries. Plus the Bishop and Earls Palace.
Perfect & Magical
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| Stromness |
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| SKARA BRAE |
John Rae (1813 – 1893) was a Scottish surgeon who explored parts of Northern Canada. He was a pioneer explorer of the Northwest Passage.
Rae explored the Gulf of Boothia, northwest of the Hudson Bay from 1846 to 1847, and the Arctic coast near Victoria Island from 1848 to 1851. In 1854, back in the Gulf of Boothia, he obtained credible information from local Inuit peoples about the fate of the franklin expedition, which had disappeared in the area in 1848. Rae was noted for his physical stamina, skill at hunting, boat handling, use of native methods, and ability to travel long distances with little equipment while living off the land.
Here I purchased an excellent biography of Orkney poet George MacKay Brown.
