Conair Pass - Ireland

Conair Pass - Ireland
Conair Pass - Dingle

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Susan's Impressions on the Orkney tour.


May 30 2014
The Highlands are glorious – still snow on some of the mountains, Ben Nevis and others. Beautiful glens (valleys), rock filled streams and falls, billowing cumulus casting erratic moving shadows on the mountainsides. Stayed at Molly’s B&B at Dalmore House in Inverness.  Molly is a lovely pint-sized woman loaded with spirit and personality. 

May 31, 2014
Amazing bus trip to John O’Groats from Inverness.  We stopped at a very moving sculpture of a Scottish family of émigrés.  The man and older child are looking out with determination, across the water, striding forward.  The woman is looking sad and fearful, looking back at the land with a baby in her arms. Everything said in one visual image.

We crossed by Catamaran to St. Margaret Hope, a village on the harbour of South Ronaldsey, the first island in the Orkney chain. Found lots to photograph on the docks before leaving – mussels clinging to the undersides of iron girders, small white flowers growing among bits of rope, old chain, rusted rebar and rotted timbers. I could see my friend Jeff happy for at least a day, shooting on that dock. 

June 1, 2014
Orphir: Viking Saga Centre with remains of a round church, graveyard and other buildings, a house, meeting hall.  All local stone, which the Vikings adopted for building. A  well done film explained the Viking Sagas and Norse myths. 
Stennes: standing stones in a field, about 2,500 years old or more. Beautiful but somewhat ruined by graffiti, some as old as 1812.  
Brodgar: large circle of huge standing stones surrounding a small field of heather.  A large henge (ditch) about four feet deep and 5-6 feet wide surrounds the stone circle. Burial mounds are visible all around. The circle stands on the highest point between two bodies of water, one fresh and one sea. 
On the way to the stones we passed a nest of swans right next to the single lane path/road and next to the water.  Great photo op as the swans seemed completely unconcerned about our interest.   
Skara Brae was found by the Laird of Skaill House in about 1850, who was a distant relative – Farquharson MacRae.  Skara Brae is a Neolithic stone settlement more ancient than the pyramids of Egypt at about 6,000 years old. It was hiding under a large sand dune and was exposed when strong winds and a storm uncovered parts of it.  There are several stone buildings b in the complex, perched on a dune right by the sea, where the inhabitants would have fished and gathered sea food. One of the houses was reconstructed to give visitors a sense of the interior.  A low narrow entrance tunnel of local Caithness stone leads into a large circular room with several side compartments for storage and sleeping.  It had a high roof built of hides and poles into a point with a vent to let smoke out from the central cooking and heating fire. The roof was covered with sod for insulation. Stone aged tools and implements have been found on the site.  

Skaill House: owned by the Laird and lived in half the year by the family.  Full of beautiful rooms, Victorian and more modern furnishings, beautiful paintings and art work, some brought from India and the Far East where they traded and lived for a time. 

Kirkwall was home for two days on the main island. A pleasant prosperous town, but the worst B & B we’ve stayed in so far. 

June 2
Back to the ferry and a sojourn across the north coast of Scotland.  Incredibly moody vistas of highlands, moors, mountains, inlets, lochs, gorse, rocks and trees.  The moodiness was helped by low hanging clouds, intermittent sun and soft northern light sifting through the layers of cloud and fog. Lots of sheep, some cattle and great photo stops. Our great luck – the rain would stop whenever we wanted to take a photo! Even the highland cattle – the loveable ‘herry coos’ as Karen, our guide called them, cooperated and posed for portraits with their little ones, looking like large teddy bears. Herds of red deer gazed at us curiously as they bedded down for the night. 

Dinner at a beautiful inn by the water (Skerrish?) with the whole group, all friends by now. Karen showed some of her photos over dinner, with a slide show on her laptop. We’ll miss the group: Kathy and Julia from Alberta and BC, Sabina and Birgit from Germany, Linda and Demitrij from Australia, Calvin and Sara from Hong Kong, Jo from New Zealand.  An excellent group of travellers we hope to stay in touch with and of course our most excellent driver and guide – a professional shepherdess and wonderful photographer, Karen Marr with Rabbies Tours.  We’re back to Edinburgh tomorrow.

No comments:

Post a Comment