June 11-28, 1989, I went on the Botanical Gardens trip to Orkney and Shetland, the northern outpost of the British Isles, without Shannon. The trip was expensive, Shannon didn’t share my enthusiasm for going, and we needed a new heat pump. While I was gone, he flew up to Suffern, New York, and drove my parents and their car to their new home in Carolina Meadows.

I have good notes from this trip because I sent postcards home to Shannon and Mom and Dad. I didn’t take any photos. All the pictures here are postcards. We had the same four leaders as our 1987-88 trips, Ken Moore from the Gardens, Mary Howes from Circle Travel, our Scottish naturalist leader Jonathan Williams, and our geologist bus driver Tim Sumner, plus me and eight others. The areas we visited were more remote than previous trips and focused on archaeological sites. At that time the ancient areas were not protected – no fences, guards, admission, trash cans or bathrooms.

We flew into Aberdeen, arriving in the morning. Tim met us with the bus, and we stopped along the roadside at St. Ninian’s Isle, 15 minutes from the airport, for tea (juice, cookies, and wine). Then we had a long ferry ride to Shetland. We arrived at Busta House Hotel, our home for the first week, in time for dinner.

They let us sleep in the first day, starting at 10 for a day exploring the north west mainland, Esha Ness. We walked along the cliffs, covered with grass mixed with pink sea thrift and small blue squilla, with occasional buttercups. Had a local beer (Orkney Raven) in the oldest pub in Shetland on the way back to the hotel.

The next day, we had a nice walk at Mid Yell in the morning, and after lunch, a boat ride chasing seals and puffins and spotted two otter. My luggage finally arrived. It had traveled to Helsinki. I had brought a few clothes in my backpack.

The next day, we took a ferry to Yell and another ferry to Unst and spent the day on Unst. We went to the Keen of Hamar Nature Reserve, then to Haroldswick, the most northerly post office in the British Isles, and then to Hermaness National Nature Reserve, where we drove to the end of the road and hiked over a hill to see a magnificent cliff. On the right were pink flowers, grass, and puffins mixed with fulmars. On the left there was smoother rock covered at the bottom with guillemot. And the ocean swirls and caves around were beautiful. Fiddlers came to play after dinner.

The next day we took a ferry that holds 12 people, no cars, to Papa Stour, an island that has about 35 residents. We walked very carefully but nearly stepped on a nesting eider duck in a well camouflaged hatchery. Our leaders had someone on the island scheduled to serve us tea. It was a sunny day and we were sprawled out sunning in a field eating cucumber sandwiches and drinking tea. On the way back, the ferry took us into a cave to see cormorants. We also saw puffins on the way back. Back on land, we stopped at a cemetery to celebrate Ken Moore’s birthday with the traditional glass of sherry.

Saturday, seven of us flew in a small plane to Fair Isle. The weather was warm and sunny. We were met by a man from the observatory who drove us around the island. All electricity on the island is from windmills. There is a school for young children, but children are sent away to school at an early age. We had lunch at the observatory and sat for a while the puffins. The workers at the observatory could reach down in a puffin’s burrow and bring out the bird. Fair Isles sweaters were available for purchase. Islanders displayed them on the grass. On the way back to Busta House, the pilot flew into caves so we could see the birds.

The next day we took an inflatable dinghy to Noss (bird city). We walked around the whole island. The cliffs were covered with gannet and guillemot. Saw a few gannet chicks and a few razorbilled guillemot and some baby eiderducks.

We were off at 8:30 the next day for Lerwick and shopping, then to Jarlshof. I could have spent an entire day at Jarlshof. There are fragments of houses at different time periods going back to 2000 BC built on top of each other using rock and pieces from earlier houses. We had lunch at the Sumburgh Hotel and then a flight to the Kirwall Hotel, Orkney. We had afternoon tea and a introduction to Orkney as soon as we arrived and at 6:30 went to hear the Scottish Early Music Consort in St. Magnus Cathedral. Dinner at 8:30. A full day.

Tuesday morning we spent at Skara Brae, which was occupied from roughly 3100 BC to about 2500 BC. That’s before Stonehenge or the pyramids. It was covered by a sandstorm and uncovered by a storm in 1850.

 

Then we went to Yesnaby, with its impressive cliffs and algae fossils, and in the afternoon, walked over to Brough of Birsay, a Pictish settlement. The island is accessible by foot during low tide. After dinner, we attended a concert by the Endellion String Quartet at St. Magnus Cathedral.

Wednesday we explored several of Rousay’s archaeological sites, Taversoe Tuick Cairn, Blackhammer Cairn, Knowe of Yarsaw, and Midhowe Cairn and broch. The cairns are all 3500 BC period and the broch around 800 AD. The broch was in especially good condition. We walked though it and Ken and I went up to the top. The Midhowe Cairn is very large. It has a modern building over and around it with walkways over the cairn so you can look down into it. When we got back, we went to hear the St. Magnus Cathedral Choir and Scottish Chamber Orchestra Brass Quintet and had a late dinner.

Thursday we went to Maeshowe, the entrance to the tomb is aligned so that it is illuminated on the winter solstice.It was awkward to get in because the entrance is very low and you have to crouch way down, but it was worth it. It is large inside and very impressive.

We spent a little time in Stromness, then went to the Standing Stones of Stenness and Ring of Brodgar and the windmills at Burgar Hill, the windiest hill in the UK. We had a picnic lunch across the road from the Ring of Brodgar, sheltered from the wind by the bus, sitting in orchids, buttercups, and daisies, eating sandwiches, Orkney cheese, quiche, cake, peaches and watching a family of six baby swans on the Loch of Harray.

We were up early Friday to get the ferry to Papa Westray, arriving mid morning to stay two nights in the community guest house. We toured a farm museum and visited Knap of Howar, the earliest standing dwellings in Northwest Europe, earlier than Skara Brae. After dinner we rode a small boat to Holm of Papay and went down a ladder into a chambered cairn. The island was covered with black gullemots, baby gulls, and eider ducks. Seals came very close to the boat going back.

Saturday we had a long walk through RSPB bird sanctuary with the warden, seeing cliffs of nesting kittiwakes and gullemots and their young. In the afternoon I took one of the planned walks by myself, following a map, in a drizzly rain. Had a minor encounter with young bulls (I just didn’t expect to see them), and was dive bombed by Arctic Terns so I went the other way where I saw a white eider duckling. A small group, including the warden, went back with me after supper and it was still there. It seemed to have a little coloring so it might not have been an albino. The warden said it was an eider not a swan (I was thinking “ugly duckling”).

It rained most of the day Sunday. We took a small boat from Papa Westray to Westray, walked around the cliffs at Noup Head Lighthouse and through Notland Castle, and had a quiet afternoon in Pierwall Hotel where they had a warm fire, and had dinner there. Then back to the Kirkwall Hotel.

Monday was probably the best day of the whole trip, on Hoy. We had a nice walk through Royal Society for the Protection of Birds reserve into Berrie Dale woods, native woodlands. Then some of us went up and over to the The Old Man of Hoy. It was a lovely day and the views were beautiful. I think when I remember my trips to Scotland, it is Hoy that I’m remembering – the smooth, flat land, high cliffs, flowers, birds, and views.

Tuesday we visited Highland Park distillery and rode around a little to see the Churchill Barriers and visit the Italian Chapel on Lamb Holm.

Spent a little time in Kirkwall, then flew to Aberdeen. We stayed  in the Swallow Imperial  Hotel and had an early morning flight home through Amsterdam and Atlanta. The flight home was unusual. When we arrived at Amsterdam, running water got disrupted, I managed to use the bathroom just before it was closed. When we got out over the ocean, a man on our plane had a heart attack. Someone administered CPR, our fuel was dumped into the ocean, and we went back to Amsterdam. I heard that the man died. We got into Atlanta very late and spent the night at an airport hotel.

Shannon had requested 25 year old Macallan if I could get it. Busta House, our first hotel, advertised that they had 100 single malt scotches. The owner went shopping while I was there and bought the Macallan for me, for $70. I had it in my backpack and wasn’t about to check it as luggage so I had it with me on the plane. My backpack wouldn’t fit in the overhead so I had it between my feet all the way home – for 13 hours!