I have no idea what possessed me to make a reservation for the 8:45 am ferry to Orkney this morning. This meant eating a quick B&B breakfast at 7:15 am and heading out to be in line by the required 8:00 am! Not my favorite thing to do in the rain and cold, but I made it to the dock on time.
Here is a photo I took of the ferry while waiting in line to check in.
I really, really like BIG ferries. They make me feel much more confident in rough weather. And this one was not even full, though it did have several big trucks loaded and buckled down before they let cars get on. (Cars did not have to be chained to the deck, luckily.)
Wish I had had more time to explore Thurso and the neighboring Scrabster, which is actually the location of the port. (Scrabster is only a couple of miles away from Thurso.)
An hour-and-a-half later, we arrived at the town on Stromness on the southwest corner of Orkney.
Can't check into my B&B, so off I went to the neolithic village of Skara Brae. And this time, compared to my last visit here in 2008, there was much better signage. In 2008, I had to stop at the only gas station in town for directions, then still got lost, so had to go back to the same gas station a second time to get instructions I actually understood. Much less embarrassing to be able to follow clear road signs. This is the visitor center for this World Heritage site.
To help people understand how the neolithic people actually lived here, they have reconstructed a sample home.
And yes, 5,300 years ago, people actually had boats. They were made of skins wrapped around wooden frames and enabled them to catch fish away from shore.
Now, this is the real Skara Brae homes. There were 9 rooms which acted as homes, no doubt each for a single family. There was also one room which must have been a workshop of some sort, as it had no beds.
What makes Skara Brae really special is that instead of stains in the earth from log posts or a few stones on the ground indicating foundations of buildings, at Skara Brae, you get almost complete underground homes with their furniture and partial roofs.
They built their homes in shell middens, which were basically garbage dumps consisting of shells and bones from meals. Digging into the shell middens and building their walls there, meant that the walls were more stable and stronger. And the fact that there was almost no wood in Orkney, everything was made from stone, so it did not rot of disintegrate like other neolithic villages.
The next two homes were parts of an earlier village that had been built on this site. They are lower than the others and had a different design with the beds being built into niches in the walls. Beds were probably lined with grasses and furs. While the islands were treeless, they had rich soil for these early farmers and lots of game, plus they had excellent access to the North Sea which was full of things to eat.
You can see in this photo how all of these dwellings were connected with covered passageways, many of which still are covered.
Now, while I was taking photos and walking around the village, the nearby farmer was moving his herd of cows from one pasture to another, chasing them around with a 4-wheeler. In a nearby pasture, were two huge bulls who were pawing the ground and bellowing in hopes of joining all the ladies. Between the cows complaining of being chased and these big guys making a big fuss, it was a few minutes of entertainment.
This is a rough diagram of the neolithic village. It was hidden by being covered with sand for thousands of years until in 1849, a big storm took away the bank near the North Sea and exposed enough of it that the lord who owned the land did a lot of excavating of the site to remove artifacts. Eventually, the professionals took over and a protective sea wall was constructed.
Here is a 360 degree video I took of the area: The Neolithic Village of Skara Brae in Orkney, Scotland
All of the dwellings had a similar plan--beds along the side, niches cut into the walls near the beds, central fire pit, a storage "dresser" directly across from the entrance, grinding stones near the fire pit, and small stone "tanks" near the dresser, possible for holding live things like lobsters or urchins to keep them fresh.
The sea was probably a lot farther away in neolithic times, but this shows the current beach and protective seawall.
Next to Skara brae is the ancestral home of the man who discovered the neolithic site, owned it, and did some digging at the site.
Not a whole lot different with this house from other old stone mansions, with one big exception. This is the china that was owned by Captain James Cook and used by him and the officers on his ship, the HMS Resolution as it made three explorations around the globe. Cook was attached and died in what is now Hawaii, but after his ship returned, the china was given to this family.
Oh no! Someone obviously got carried away in the 50s with this pink bathroom!!
The rest of today was mostly spent driving around the Mainland, as the Orcadians call their largest island, trying to find parking close to the information office in Kirkwall, and then trying to get reservations for dinner. There are limited restaurants, and i did not know they mostly required reservations. All were booked, so I ended up with a fairly decent pizza.
Finally, made it to my B&B near Stromness and got checked in. This one was really very nice and I have a very comfortable king-sized bed, plus the owner has an ice machine and offered me a big glass of ice, so I really enjoyed a large glass of ice water. Will make some tea tonight and get ice for it tomorrow before I go out for the day.
And I ended up taking 6,190 steps and walking 2.42 miles. Some of it was at Skara Brae because it was a substantial walk from the visitor center to the neolithic village and then to the mansion and finally walking around Kirkwall.
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