north Hoy

North Hoy

The dwarfie stane is a hollowed-out piece of a once solid big rock, this was done using only stone tools over five thousand years ago it was an amazing place to me. I try to get my head around how our ancient ancestors done these sorts of things each one- a small step in our evolution, the same solid stone block these days could probably be bored and polished using power tools in a day or so! It must have taken a very long time to do this in a very remote location five thousand years ago

After our visit to the wonderful dwarfie stane, we decided this would be the place we would tackle the walk to Orkney isles highest peak- Ward hill, at 478meters its not a big hill and from my previous experience could have been and wrongly was! viewed as a walk in the park! It was a steep up and down the heather was knee deep in places with rough underfoot conditions, done in trail running shoes no ankle support no poles no designated path or route! In short it was a slog up to the summit saddle where we were rewarded with great views, there is also an exposed ridge its much more than the walk in the park we thought it would be,

Caching bonus there was a trig point at the summit (I knew there would be) now that I am a trig point bagger, I logged the condition took a photo of the faceplate cleared the drain plug hole as it was overgrown and then logged it on my trigpointing UK web site page, BUT I had intentionally not bought an OS land ranger map for Orkney, I had bought a waterproof footprint map not my usual scale no trig points marked map. I did this to be sure I didn’t start ticking boxes! this map Being not to my usual scale and accuracy had big drawbacks for route finding and distance gauging though, perhaps I should have stuck with what I knew and got the land ranger series? Nope that’s not a perhaps now! with hindsight I should have defo got that map for Hoy at a minimum,

Once back at Sheila’s wheels objective achieved we looked back at type two fun, good weather great views good stretch of the legs stuff, ok that done it was now time to camp up at Rackwick and have a beer, what few beers I had seeing as the only shop on the isle was shut, there is a decent sized car park at Rackwick with public toilets and an area for pitching a tent, we got a great spot for the van and tent, with plenty time to have a wee daunder down to the beach via the loo`s and Burnmouth Bothy, the Bothy was shut for the pandemic sadly, not that we needed it, we spent a fair amount of time around the Bothy and beach just enjoying the ambiance, later I would come to regret not swimming the burn down through the glen to the sea, the actual bay and beach area looked to my untrained eye to have rip tide capability? so I wouldn’t have been game for a sea swim, the freshwater burn looked great though,

What a place to have your morning coffee and nighttime drinks braw views, but we had work to do! A coastal walk to first of all the old man of hoy, this route is well marked from the car park it’s a steep track trek up to the cliff side then a pleasant march through RSPB grounds on a decent trail to the cliff top overlooking the old man of Hoy,

The year I was born Chris Bonington climbed the old man of hoy and the BBC made a documentary of it, this was big stuff in its day fifty years ago not even just the climb but the filming of it was a big operation back then, it was a huge success country wide and made Bonington a household name, I went to see him do a talk promoting his biography where he talked about this, but much more interesting was after his wife’s death he was getting really down, when a young climber asked him if he would be willing to climb it again with him, this brought purpose back to his life, this is a great wee film only three mins long easy found on you tube of him climbing it as an eighty year old! Incredible!

https://youtu.be/_aIrZnJkIqs

From there we had planned a cliff top walk to St johns head, this is a thin unmarked path at the top of some impressive sea cliffs, we walked along chatting but still being respective of the Hight and exposure, me and Sheila are both experienced outdoors enthusiasts, not adrenaline junkies we both kept a respectable distance from the edge, as we walked along this path it suddenly disappeared! right down a gorge! St John's Head has the highest vertical sea cliff in the UK at 346m high.! This path had slid down into a high vertical cliff, that was truly an eye opener for me more than Sheila maybe because I was in front? But she was much less fazed about it than me, We both later laughed us being proper drama queens OMG! Near death experience stuff lol! but truth be told on a foggy day not paying attention it truly could have been the end of someone, we were later told a tale of a tour guide on Orkney who sadly lost his life taking photos of puffins at an exposed edge which gave way on him,

We walked in land a little after St johns head to go to the summit of Sui Fea after the summit was a trig point! (photo woo hoo yah beauty moment) then we had a huge debate about Orkneys second highest peak? Cuilags! Should we go up? It was not too far from where we were but to scale it we would have to go up then skirt back roughly where we were, we had already had a hard day and intended a river/forest walk on our route back, we didn’t need to add this peak, We looked at each other and laughed as we both said what would bob say? Would he be disappointed with us? Could we cope with him saying to us later? Due to our mutual friend, bob, we had no option! we went to the peak called Cuilags, and to be fair on bob we are glad we did, the views were stunning there was even a pair of eagles flying above

The walk back down was I would say interesting! There’s no real words to describe that sort of terrain steep knee deep heather, But our options were Zero! it was the same terrain whichever route we chose unless we backtracked the way we had come. But I wanted to see berriedale wood, it turned out this ancient woodland is only in the distance anyway, but once down from the peak we hit a path that goes right through the middle of ward hill and cuilags, to a place called moa ness –back to rackwick this path woulda made a great days walk out and back, but we were just glad to be out off steep hillside and take the path back, I could count having seen the ancient wood from this path

Sheilas wee caddy van wasn’t the only VW-caddy at the Rackwick car park! There was another! As happens with these things we got chatting and Isla and Dave became friends what a smashing couple a great find and source of local info, two very interesting people with so many shared interests to ours, we could have talked for hours, well hours more than the hours we already chatted for! It was great to meet fellow outdoors enthusiasts Dave was also a cyclist and Isla was doing all the trig points on Orkney,

We had two nights on Hoy another two would have been great, had I been cycling I would have needed three or four nights, the ferries had to be booked for now and Sheila had limited time, we had enjoyed our stay but had our camp site at stromness booked again, then I could retrieve the daunder, it was locked up at the back of the shower block at ness caravan site, the first time I had padlocked her in easy six months