The Southern Islands
01 July 2017
Before heading south, we went back north to Twatt near Birsay, for a guided tour of a world war two airfield there, called HMS Tern. It turned out to be huge, with no fewer than five runways, a control tower which we visited, lots of accommodation and catering establishments, and best of all a cinema, parts of which are still intact. Apparently it was easier at the end of the war just to grass over these runways, so now they can’t be seen at all. They were very narrow, so the navy fliers could train to land on aircraft carriers. There is a lottery fund application to turn this site into a flight museum. I hope they get it.
Then we went back to Dounby and shopped at the coop for food and petrol for our next few days.
We have been fascinated by the history of these islands, from neolithic times up to now, and the effect the two world wars had on Orkney has been a lasting one for the islands of Lamb Holm, Glims, Burray and South Ronaldsay. Clever fortifications protected the naval fleet in Scapa Flow in WW1, but when the Royal Oak was sunk by a U-boat that had sneaked in, Churchill decided to connect all these islands by permanent barriers or causeways. These replaced the rusting blockships which can still be seen beside the causeways. A massive civil engineering undertaking, but now these islands aren’t really islands any more. All you need is a car or a bus and you can go to Kirkwall very rapidly.
We decided to stay at one campsite on South Ronaldsay for four days, looking at different parts of what would have been islands fourteen to seventeen each day, as far as the weather would permit. The campsite was incredibly basic, with a very unpleasant stand-alone loo come chemical disposal location, with no hot water, and a very distinctive unpleasant smell. Urgh. Bizarrely, the campsite had no monile phone service, but inside the loo, suddenly we had 4g! But we stayed, as the campsite commanded a terrific view of the North Sea. There was only one other rig there, a caravan.
Over the four days we visited the Tomb of the Eagles, the Tomb of the Otters, Cairns Broch archaeological dig, the Italian Chapel and the Fossil Museum. We always hit popular tourist attractions at the crack of dawn, before the b and b brigade have finished their full Scottish breakfasts, and before the coach parties have rounded up their punters. Tomb of the Eagles was like that, there is now a very organised and informative visitor centre there, and we and another couple had the benefit of the first guide lecture of the day, before setting off along the cliffs to visit the tomb itself. The guide showed us three of the skulls which had been found in the tomb by the farmer. He had given it a name, Jock Tamson, because he reckoned it was one of our ancestors, and we are all Jock Tamson’s bairns. I liked that!
The tomb itself was impressive, accessible by means of a small sled, and a rope along the roof of the entrance tunnel by which to pull yourself along the three metre passageway. All went well until the sled wheel stuck half way, at which point I turned over and did the rest with feet and hands. Inside all the amazing finds have sadly been taken away, but the construction of the tomb, as a building, was awesome.
The Tomb of the Otters was a different story. Situated right beside a modern bistro on the cliffs of South Ronaldsay, it was only discovered by the landowner in 2010 when he wanted to expand the car park, and the big lump in the middle of the propsed carpark turned out to be a neolithic tomb!. A very enthusiastic guide told us all about it, then finally we were taken to the entrance, and allowed to fold ourselves into a tiny little space. Only one of the five chambers have so far been excavated, and only two people can crouch inside at a time. This won’t be on the cruise ship passengers’ itinerary any time soon.
The visit there was spoiled by the atmosphere in the bistro of unhappy staff, but the food was lovely.
On Wednesday morning we went to look at the dig at Cairns Broch. We got there really early, before various minibuses turned up full of archaeology students and volunteer workers. We hung around for a while and suddenly there was a tall young man ready to give us a guided tour of the ongoing dig, as people around us scraped and dug and filled wheelbarrows with spoil, did drawings of trenches, took photographs of details. We learned than brochs began at 300 BC, and were gradually destroyed, filled in, built on top of, from 160AD onwards. They were not military or defensive, more likely the headquarters of a chief. All brilliant stuff. Ole showed us some of the most significant finds they had made, a jewellery mould which Ortak now produce silver copies of, a blue glass bead that proves there was a great deal of trade going on. In one area of the constructins round the broch was a jewellery workshop. We were there for over two hours, in brilliant sunshine, learning a lot!
There were some great walks, including one on Hoxa.
We noticed on Wednesday however that Reg’s engine was sounding a bit rougher than usual. When we got back to the campsite we had a look, and realised it was the exhaust which had got noisy. I got down on the ground and found something long thin and metallic dangling underneath the exhaust, which looked as though it had broken off from something. We decided to include a trip to a specialist garage in Kirkwall,on Thursday.
Our first task though was to go to the Italian Chapel on Lamb Holm. It was built by 1000 Italian prisoners of war, who were building the Churchill Barriers at the time. We got there just after nine, and were the first people to see it. We had it all to ourselves for ten minutes.
We went to the Scapa distillery for a tour while we waited for the appointment to get the van fixed. We had lunch at Hatston. Then Maconochy’s fixed our exhaust in an hour. Thank goodness.
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