Skara Brea: Meet the Flintstones

The man’s directions led us to the Sterness hotel, alleged to have Orkney brews on tap. It was far more expensive of a place than we had counted on, but we had not tried either of the Orkney brews they had on tap. I tried a pint of the Red MacGregor, named for Rob Roy MacGregor, an infamous Scottish rebel. The name also served to label the beer as red. Overall I was a bit let down with it. My father had a pint of the Northern Light. Again, in case you missed the witty subtlety, it’s a light beer.

Northern Light was the Orkney beer I had the least interest in trying, since I’ve never tasted a good light beer. But I have to say, for a light beer, Northern Light was packed with flavor, and I stole many a sip from my father’s pint. Sadly, I never did get a chance to have my own pint of Northern Light, but I would easily place it in line with Dark Island and Skullsplitter as a very good beer. A light beer, what a surprise.

Later that night I would have the chance to try the other two beers I hadn’t tasted that the Orkney Brewery puts out, bought in the bottle from a local shop. Raven Ale fell somewhere between red and dark and was pretty tasty, but not one of my favorite beers all things considered. Dragonhead Stout, their newest beer, was nice and dark, but neither as chewy or flavorful in taste as I might have liked. Much like the Red MacGregor, I found it drinkable, but not great. Now back to the day at hand.
Our last sight for the day was perhaps the most impressive, or at least it should have been, the site of Skara Brae.

In the mid 1800’s I believe it was, a rough storm savaged the outer hills of the Orkney’s, tearing a layer of grass from several hills, and revealing the ruins of the 5000 year old settlement of Skara Brea. The settlement had been remarkably preserved through the ages by the grass that had grown over it as the land took the settlement back as hills. These prehistoric runes are far and away the best preserved in northern Europe.

On a side note, must the time span of 5000 years get less impressive with each passing day? The Ring of Brogar, Clanais, Maes Howe, and now Skara Brae? Sheesh, how much of this ancient crap is still lying around?

There are ruins on the wall in Skara Brae, but we know not how to read them, nor do we know anything of the language they spoke. For the most part, everything we know of these people came from this set of these ruins.

They made so many things from stone; their beds, their shelves, their boxes, and pretty much their entire house and everything in it was made of stone. They nested their settlement into the hills, more specifically DUG into the hills almost like a rabbit warren. Jewelry, fishing bait boxes, circles of stones laid out in the center of the room for a fire, all were amazingly preserved. To visit them should have been truly awesome. Sadly, it was far and away the most touristy place we visited.

We weren’t allowed to get close to, let alone touch any of the ruins, but were expected to walk around the hills above them and look from a distance. For the most part, I probably could have had better views looking for pictures of it on the internet. And worst of all, the most preserved “house” of the settlement had a film crew working inside it. We were still allowed to look in, but only from one side of the hill (god forbid we should cast an unwanted shadow!) and if the atmosphere hadn’t been killed by the swarming tourists or the guards, the film crew made it impossible to appreciate their “set”. Plus, of course, I was extremely jealous that the film crew got to play in the ruins, while I wasn’t even allowed to cast a shadow on them.