An Escape up North, Very Far North
Another year, another holiday not shared. 2021 saw us head further north than I had ever been before. We loaded, probably overloaded, the car full of camping gear and drove through the night to get to Scrabster to sail across to Orkney. What seemed like one million hours of driving later we had arrived at the ‘harbour’. Harbour is a grand word, it was a piece of concrete stuck out into the sea that you drove down dodgy single track roads to get to. I was sceptical to say the least. But no, I was wrong, the ferry rocked up and we jumped onboard.
Lyns had perviously warned me that the crossing was going to be rough and to have a sick bag on standby. In reality we had two very smooth crossing, over dramatic as usual! We sailed across to St Margaret’s Hope as I had booked a pitch at Wheems Farm Campsite. Due to the mist, it took us about two days to see the views but what a stunning location. We got the tent set up, without arguing I would also add, and set out to explore. Here I made a major faux pas. Unbeknownst to us, the campsite was massive on veganism and had some lovely meal nights. We have a habit of taking a lamb kebab mix for our first night which we slow cook on the barbecue. On it went and as James and I were walking back from our exploration of the beach, all we could smell was Donner kebab drifting over the breeze, oops!
The campsite was a ten minute walk down the hill to a lovely beach where we spent a lot of time. A lovely sandy expanse with barely anyone there. This is what I love about Scotland, you often get picture perfect beaches to yourself. We were lucky, we had some misty and cooler days, but no rain for the whole week!
James was still of an age where he fitted into his dinosaur sleeping bag. Incidentally, as I write this in 2026, it has just died a death. I tend to be an early riser so each morning I would be up early and, with the weather being so nice, sit looking out at the view, listening to an audiobook, in the sunshine. James would be up next and, wrapped up, he would be out to join me, reading a book or watching something on the iPad. What I would about camping is screen time is severely limited. We had four battery packs to last us the week, to keep phones and iPad charged. Once it was gone, it was gone.
With it being a relatively small island, we spent a lot of time exploring it. One of the days we visited Scapa, where the German fleet scuttled itself in the aftermath of WWI and the HMS Royal Oak was sunk at the start of WWII. It is a place with a lot of history, going back to the viking period. However, James was not at an age to fully understand, so off to the beach we went! Again, another amazing sandy beach with very few people on it.
We travelled all over the island exploring. One of the days we had a trip to see the famed Ring of Brodgar. Orkney is famed for its neolithic history and this is one of its many sites where you can reach out and touch our ancestors. It is amazing to think this circle was built thousands of years ago. This was just some of the many standing stones we saw as we explored the islands.
Another thing we had been told about, that we wanted to visit, was the Brough of Birsay lighthouse. Set on an uninhabited island, only accessible at low tide, it was an adventure to get to see. We parked in the carpark, ate our soup to fuel up and headed off. No beach here as it was a rocky foreshore. Littering the causeway we loads of piles of stones visitors had been creating. James loved putting a stone or two on top. Despite the cooler, overcast weather, it was an amazing island to explore, although the sea cliffs are not for the faint hearted and we made sure James stayed well away from the edge. Lots of nature to see for such a small island.
Given we were somewhat apprehensive about the long drive and camping on an island that is renown for its windy weather, we had an amazing time. No rain for a whole week and our campsite set up and packed away without any arguments. We broke the drive home into two with a stopover in Inverness. An amazing Island to visit. Very different to the Hebrides which we had visited many times. In Orkney you find a softness of rolling hills, compared to the jagged edges in Harris, for example. Definitely somewhere I would like to go back to at some point, we did not scratch the surface of the island!