Skara Brae and Marwick Head

Saturday 1st September 2018

I did not do my walks on Orkney with any logical progression as I went all over the place with little connection from day to day. At the start of this day I returned to the point where I had ended two days previously to continue along the trail beside the west coast of the Orkney mainland and reach the point where I had ended three days before. The principle motivator for doing this actual walk on this day was actually poor weather, so after enjoying several days of sunshine I was now greeted with low cloud for much of the day. Although it wasn’t raining it also wasn’t the weather to do anything particularly adventurous so I caught a bus to Skara Brae where there are the remains of a Neolithic village that was discovered amongst the dunes behind the Bay of Skaill. This was where I had ended my walk two days before, but I had not had the time then to look around the remains, so now I devoted all of the morning to looking around the exhibition and at the reconstruction of what the Neolithic houses would have looked like when in use, before heading down to the shore to have a look around the actual uncovered village. It is an amazing place, although it is so difficult to see how people lived in these tiny houses with their very low doorways I wondered if perhaps hobbits had lived in them!

Entry to Skara Brae also gives you entry into Skaill House, which is a large mansion house whose laird originally discovered the buried village. By the time I came out of Skaill House, Skara Brae was becoming excessively packed due to coachloads of tourists from the cruise ships that now flood Orkney every summer. Feeling that I had timed my visit just right I headed onto the beach of the Bay of Skaill and had my lunch looking out over the mist-enshrouded bay. After eating I made my way north around the bay and joined the clearly marked path that continues the route along the rocky coastline. I couldn’t resist coming off the path several times to venture onto the wave washed rocks to get a closer look at the powerful seas that were pounding the coast. Despite the miserable weather I was fascinated by the craggy scenery and since I was in no hurry I slowly wandered beside the coast soaking in the landscape with no regard to the time. After my rushing about on the day before it was great to be able to take my time and not worry about making an appointment.

After passing a sea stack called the Spore and rounding Outshore Point I came down to some old fisherman’s huts hidden away in the picturesque inlet of Sand Geo. A short distance from there is the bay of Mar Wick with the hill of Marwick Head and its nature reserve ahead of me where many sea birds screamed over my head as I slowly climbed the hill beside increasingly tall cliffs. At the top of the hill is the impressive tower of the Kitchener Memorial that commemorates the death of Earl Kitchener whose ship, H.M.S. Hampshire, hit a mine on 5th June 1916 near this point. Although his name may not be known to everyone the minister of war is most famous these days as being the face and pointing finger on the “Your Country Needs You” posters. The cliffs below Marwick Head are amazing and once I had descended a short distance I was able to turn around and get a tremendous view of these amazing structures that stand above pounding waves and are home to countless sea birds. The clouds above the tower were finally beginning to break with the sun attempting to break through and light up what had been a very grey and dull day.

With the tidal island of the Brough of Birsay before me I descended all the way down to the sea beside Birsay Bay and crossing the grassy dunes I came into the village of Birsay where I had ended my walk three days before. The bus that I had taken back to Kirkwall on that day was not due for another two hours so I had a lot of time to kill. One option would have been to resume my progress along the St. Magnus Way that I had abandoned at the end of my walk three days earlier, but that trail keeps to roads for much of its traverse of Orkney, which is a little tedious. I did consider walking along the trail as far as the quaintly named Twatt crossroads, but in the end I decided to continue along the coast and return to the Brough of Birsay. From Marwick Head I could see that this tidal island was still cut off from the mainland, but by the time I reached the Point of Buckquoy the tide had sufficiently receded to enable me to make a dry footed crossing onto the island where I could, once again, have a look around the remains of the medieval monastery and Viking settlement.

It is astonishing to consider the time difference between this village and the one at Skara Brae where the latter is five thousand years old whereas the one on Birsay is just one thousand years old. Ultimately when all you have left is a rectangle of stones on the ground there is not much difference between the two despite supposedly four thousand years of progress, especially after one thousand years of wear has wiped it all away. Even though I had looked around the site just three days before I still spent a long time walking around again, possibly seeing more than I had seen the first time. I also walked up to the lighthouse again that is at the highest point on the island taking a different route to the one I had taken before until finally I returned across the causeway to the village of Birsay where I caught the bus back to Kirkwall. By the end of the day the sun had come out and it was just as sunny as it had been on my previous days on Orkney, but this was too late for me to take advantage of it. Despite the poor weather I had an enjoyable day looking around the fascinating Skara Brae before having a good walk along the coast taking my time and enjoying the walk past stunning scenery. The secret to happiness is to take your time.