OUT AND ABOUT WITH RALPH: A hole lot more to a trip over the firth to Orkney
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
Getting out is the best way to lift the spirits as winter takes a grip in the far north
There are always so many wonderful places to visit in the far north. Some people think this is a good time of year to hunker down and do lots of indoor things but it doesn’t work, you just end up lethargic and depressed and never accomplishing what you’d planned. No, this is the time of year to get out and about!
How about a trip to Orkney? Provided of course you can afford the ferry fare, but a return trip for a foot passenger costs no more than a meal out.
So on a bright, cold December morning I boarded the MV Alfred at Gills for the hour-long crossing to St Margaret’s Hope. The crew are very friendly and the sailing of the boat most professional, I can recommend it!
Seas were slight, I probably could have kayaked to Stroma but there was a bit of swell in the middle of the firth. I can never decide which crossing of the firth I prefer, on the Hamnavoe you sail under the towering Hoy cliffs and the Old Man, but this crossing gives great views of the islands. I could see the sheep on Stroma and the dots of wild cattle on the green pastures of Swona – a place I have, ashamedly, yet to visit.
Once berthed at the Hope there were about five hours of daylight for a walk on South Ronaldsay, a day of dappled cloud and gleams of cold sun. Usually when I’ve visited Orkney in winter it’s been murky and grey, this time for once the distant horizons were sharp and clear and I could appreciate how the panorama of sea and islands changed with almost every step.
From the village I took the road across the island to the bay at St Peter’s Kirk on the east side. Everywhere on Orkney are hedges of two tough plants, a common rose known as Rosa Rugosa and a Hebe with big leaves and blue flowers, some of which were still in bloom. I call it the Orkney Hebe, the greater the exposure to gales and salt spray the more the shrub likes it. Yet you can never buy it, your only hope of growing it in Caithness is to propagate from cuttings.
The old church stands on the bay overlooking the sands with the headland beyond. A very peaceful walk led south along the shore to Newark Bay, sands and rocks covered in wrack, the occasional seal. Briefly the scene was lit by low sun over the breaking waves with the distant cliffs of Copinsay beyond the kirk.
Scrambling up through the dunes I found a track leading to the road which climbed over another crest where the views opened out on both sides with Scapa Flow and the Hoy hills ahead. Here a very swish modern house has been built with one of the finest views anywhere. South Ronaldsay is prospering with lots of new houses or well-renovated traditional buildings. I saw not one pothole even on the smallest roads.
After a short stretch on the main road I turned down to Sand Wick where a fine standing stone seems to have been placed like a lookout to Swona. Like Stroma, this island looks so easy to reach – but the tides are even more ferocious. I’ll get there one day.
Already the sun was going down on one of the shortest afternoons of the year. A track took me over the hill to Widewall Bay where I could follow the shore for a couple of miles, here it’s more mud than sand but still easy walking among the rocks and seaweed. It was now just a short walk back along the road to the village. I’d rather hoped to find a coffee shop but nothing seemed to be open so I just wandered down the road to the pier.
The Alfred was already docked and as a foot passenger I was allowed on early. It is strange to set out across the Pentland Firth in the dark, to be comfortably taken across some of the most hostile waters in the British Isles on a midwinter night. In the middle of the firth I could stand on deck and watch the lighthouses flashing from Swona, Stroma, Dunnet Head, Cantick Head and the Skerries and be glad I wasn’t in a little sea-kayak!
And the first thing I encountered when driving away from Gills harbour was, you guessed it, potholes…
