Michele and Jim's Travel Tales: The Orkneys

Coming home right now from our day trip to the Orkneys. A great call, Michele, this tour. Despite the really early start, just sitting back and watching the magical coutryside go by the window, listening to expert commentary was just what the doctor ordered today. I have done a lot of driving. The trip up north, about three hours, was along the coast, a landscape of rugged cliffs, green pastures, sheep, deer, cattle and little hamlets. I learned a lot about this part of the world, much of which is abandoned settlements that have relied on their surroundings throughout history - fishing, crofting, farming - but have fallen to modern pressure and the harsh treatment of the aristocracy over the years. It was amazing to see genuine ghost towns, Bedbea, where the entire population emigrated to New Zealand, now is advertised as an historic 'clearance" village. Little stone houses were regularly seen literally covered with weed and heather and every now and then a magnificent castle, either still housing a blue blood family who charge admission to tour a section, or recently bought by an American investment banker.

Got to John o Groats, named after a dutch smarty called John who used to charge a groat (whatever that was) to take mainlanders over the firth to Orkney. It was foggy and cold so we bought beanies, not for their stunning appearance, and jumped aboard the ferry.

The fog lifted when we reached Orkney and our tour guide told us it would be a sweltering day, it could reach 17. The day was bloody marvellous. The tour was enthralling, funny, well organised and Orkney is like nothing I have ever seen. Apart from just sweeping green hills surrounded by waterways, there is history here that I never imagined. It has World War 1 and 2 stories abounding, being a haven for the Royal Navy and the scene for one of its worst disasters, 800 killed in the torpedoing of a ship there.

It housed Italian POWs who built the Churchill Barriers after the disaster and built a chapel out of concrete and scrap metal that you have to see to believe.

We also saw Scara Brae a three thousand AD settlement uncovered almost intact after a storm erased a sand dune. An eerie experience looking at these underground homes from the Neolithic age on the sea strand at the edge of a desolate moor.