Our trip to Scotland this year was a little special, as we had a new bike and we also went to the Orkney Islands for the summer solstice.
Scotland and The Orkney Islands June 2001
Well this week was going to be new for us both, as we had a new bike, a lovely new BMW R1150RT, and also we were going to spend a few days on The Orkney Islands. We wanted to spend the summer solstice, the longest day, as far north as we could go, and the Orkney’s seem to offer what we wanted, peace and quiet and remoteness. We left Nottingham on Monday morning, and we did the 545 miles to Ullapool in around 8 hours, with two fuel and food stops. There was no discussion as to where we would be staying, the Sheilings guest house, and a place we had come to know as our second home. Duncan and Mairie are wonderful hosts and make us feel so welcome and the Sheilings has a great sportsman’s lodge, complete with sauna, laundry, drying room and a garage workshop where you can keep your bike and even work on it if you need. We decided to take each day as it came, as you can never predict the weather, and rain is usually not that far away.
Ullapool to Orkney
We had to catch the ferry at noon and it was 97 miles to Scrabster, on the north west coast, a lot of the trip would be on single-track roads so there is no guarantee of the average speed you could do. You have to be so careful on these type of roads, if it’s not the sheep wondering across the roads, it will be the locals, that may know the road, but still fly along them sometimes like fools.
Going north from Ullapool on the brilliant A835 to Ledmore junction was great, this is a well surfaced road with some great turns and brilliant views, it is easy to get to 90 MPH on most stretches, just watch for the sheep. At Ledmore we turned onto a single-track road, the A837 passed the Alt Hotel, a great place for food and drink, following the river Oykel. If you ever get up here, call in to the Falls of Shin, here you can watch the wild salmon jumping the falls, on their route up the river Shin to their birth place. They have a great soup available in the cafeteria, and it certainly warms you up, also handy for a toilet stop. We soon picked up the A9, the main east coast road to Thurso and Wick in the far north, over the Knockfin Heights; the winds were blowing a gale. It was very windy and a few times we were blown across the road badly, I thought that the ferry would be cancelled due to the winds, but thankfully it wasn’t. We got on the ferry ok, at noon and settled down for the 2 hour crossing, having taken lunch we had a stroll on the deck and we soon saw the Old Man of Hoy, a large column, standing out of the sea just off Hoy Island. Leaving the ferry at Stromness, around 2pm, we soon found the road to Kirkwall, the main town in the Orkneys, and we soon passed numerous signs depicting monuments and historic sites to see, lots of exploring to do, methinks.
Vestlays Banks, the cottage we were staying at, is situated on one of the small islands that surround the mainland. It is on a tiny island called Burray, which is between the mainland and the island of South Ronaldsay. To get to Burray you cross The Churchill Barriers, these are man made banks between the islands, which were built to keep safe the war ships that used to anchor in the deep Scapa Flow during the wars. We arrived at Vestlaybanks and it was trick to start with as they had a steep gravel road, and we all know, heavy motorbikes and steep gravel tracks are an awkward combination. Parking the bike up, we checked in and had a lovely cup of tea and rested for the evening. The next day we rode to various monuments around the islands including, Skara Brae, Ring of Brogar, Stones of Stenness, Maes How, and numerous Lochs and views. One thing that is missing on the islands, and that is trees, there are hardly any to be found due to the strong salty sea winds, we saw a few in Kirkwall itself. The wind had died down, but the weather was still overcast, but we enjoyed a wonderful summer solstice, it was still light at 11 pm that night as we enjoyed the glorious view across Scapa Flow.
Next morning we headed for Skara Brae, a Neolithic village, which is on the shore of the Bay of Skaill, on the west coast of the mainland of Orkney. It is dated back to 3200BC, and as you can see by it's construction, they had no wood then as well. We had a look around, then a warm meal as that wind off the sea was rather chilly. It was a little dear, the food was £19.00... Then we were off to find the Ring of Brogar, a monument of 36 standing stones, built around 2000-2500BC. Originally there were 60 rings in a complete circle, 340 ft in diameter. The stone on the right in this picture was struck by lightning in 1980, and has been split down the middle.
On one of our trips we called into the Italian Chapel, this was an old nissen hut in the prisoner of war camps where Italian troops were kept. They had turned this hut into an exquisite chapel for their prayers, with whatever they could find, it has some lovely paintings and wonderful ornate features. It is the last hut standing on the remains of the old POW camp, and you can’t help but be impressed with its beautiful construction. The prisoners were used to build up the Churchill Barriers during WWII, to block any passage through to Scapa Flow. In WWI ships were scuttled to block Scapa Flow as the whole German fleet was moored here after the war. We had a good time on Orkney, the roads were really quiet and there were lots of places to explore, but more than two days there, and I would have been bored. We caught the afternoon ferry at 3 pm and landed in Scrabster at 4.45pm then 110 miles down the A9 to Inverness, here we took the A96, Aberdeen road and stopped at Woodside Farm near Culloden, to stay the night with our old friend Margaret and Haimish McPhereson in their wonderful B+B. Next day after a wonderful breakfast it was the long haul home to Nottingham.
SCOTLAND 18-21 AUGUST 2001
This was a quick long week end in Scotland, we were staying at The Sheilings in Ullapool, so we left very early on Saturday, and were in Ullapool around 2 pm. We checked in and had a shower, and spent the rest of the day walking around the town, finishing off with a meal in The Ceilidh Place. The meal was pretty abysmal, we had steak and chips, and that was all you got, no salad or even a twig of garnish, just a rather poor steak, and what looked like oven fry’s.
Next day we took a ride up to the brilliant A835 up to Laxford Bridge, where we headed south on a single-track road, the A838. We rode through the Reay Forest, along Loch Stack, More and Merkland and finally to the falls of Shin to the south of Loch Shin. We were a little wet as there was a fine drizzle, so we stopped at the Falls of Shin, for a lovely bowl of piping hot soup and a great cup of tea. Having been replenished, we headed west along the single track A839, along the Oykel River, through Oykel Bridge and picked up the A835 south, back into Ullapool. That evening we had a great meal in the Ferryboat Inn, with a great view over Loch Broom. Next morning after one of Duncan’s most excellent cooked breakfast’s we headed back to Nottingham, trip end was 1344 miles