The Dark Island

“The line goes out into the sea, it’s a narrow strip of land, where weird and grimm the standing stones in a circle there do stand.” The Standing Stones of Sterness, Traditional Orkney folk song.

We had a noon ferry over to the isle of Orkneys – a pleasant change from yesterday’s 7:30 ferry. It allowed us to take our times with the morning (I slept in until 9!). We gambled some more on the ferry and this time I only won two games, but some pretty damned large pots. So somehow I think I came out of it with the most monetary gain. A nice change, that.

The Orkneys immediately felt less mountainous and more hilly than the rest of Scotland (which is not to say that the hills here did not get as tall as mountainous terrain elsewhere). I saw a number of clouds clinging to hilltops. But the land flowed more, the hills were far less steep and thus the change in landscape less dramatic. The land felt both wild and less unified than the rest of Scotland.

The buildings here were largely made out of stucco, with some areas the exception by having a build of gray stone that gave them a charming and ancient look. Best of all, I don’t think they did it to be cute. I think they just did it.

If tourism was a strong industry in the Orkneys, I couldn’t tell. Though I susupect a good deal of tourism was present, it left no visible alteration to the land. To wander the shops, they seemed quaint and bizarre at times, but never touristy.

Best of all, standing stones are plentiful here, and integrated with respect, but not awe, into the land. The hills were simply freckled with them, mostly single stones or pairs of stones, surrounded by grazing sheep in the backyard of farmers. There were more standing stones than we could see in a week. The biggest circle, the Ring of Brodgar, sandwiched on a strip of land between two lochs, was both visible and quite a sight from miles away.

The land is also dotted by Cairns mostly estimated to be around 5000 years old. The cairns appear to be tall hills rising abruptly from the ground. Many of them are not confirmed cairns, as no one has bothered or dared to excavate them. Many of them could simply be hills abruptly rising like zits on the landscape, with no prize to give if popped.