Wind Farms And Ice Cream - Orkney Scenery and other Orkney, United Kingdom General Tips

Favorite Thing: Taste Orkney Ice Cream!

This is a typical scene on Orkney - clouds and blue sky, cows, lush grass and wind generators.

All jokes about methane from cows and wind farms are off, ok?!

Orkney Ice cream is famous. Orkney is also exposed to sea breezes (almost constantly) so this picture captures much of how Orkney will look to you.

Fondest Memory: My fondest memories are many - it is a wonderful place. But imagine this one ...

...I am in Maes Howe, all alone, mid winter. Few people get to be in this burial chamber alone (usually guided tours only - by Historic Scotland). Somehow I am at the entrance tunnel, alone, this grey, cloudy winter day, all quiet, eary and still.
A golden bonfire bursts to flame on a distant skyline and grows to a huge fire ball ... then I realise, as it fades, that I was privileged to witness 5 minutes of setting sun, glimpsed between hill and cloud. The sun illuminated the back wall of the chamber, down the long entrance tunnel, like molten metal cascading into a stone mould, pouring into the chamber, filling it with vibrant life, then ebbing away taking the spirits of the dead with it, to peace, ... calm and still once more. Grey blankets of cloud were drawn over the landscape. I stood there, speachless with no one to speak with.
Witness to one of the most amazing phenonema - the winter sunset lighting the tunnel of Maes Howe. I shared this moment with those who built it, built it for this very moment.

Now part of me lives forever at Maes Howe, Orkney.

Maes Howe Info

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Favorite Thing: You only get lichen like this when the air is pure and clean! So come to Orkney to clean your lungs out (and it's peaceful too!)

This is typical - an old church beside the water, calm and meditative. Well it was 7am!

You will arrive at this bay if coming on the JOG passenger ferry. Otherwise, it is at the south tip of South Ronaldsay, near the Tomb of the Eagles.

More info to follow.


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Favorite Thing: Here are the main websites for Orkney:

Orkney.org
Orknet.co.uk
Orkney Tour
Orkney Ferries
Car Hire
Orkney Folk Festival
St Magnus Festival
Orcadian Newspaper
Orkney Tourist Board / visitorkney.com
Orkneyjar.com
Historic-Scotland.Gov.uk
Orkney Archaeological Trust / orkneydigs.org.uk

Fondest Memory: The people and the amazing archaeology sites.

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Favorite Thing: So, you think the Orkney Islands are off the beaten path? Well, think again. The biggest island, called Mainland, is served by 5 ferries and an airport, connecting it to Scotland. Yet being true islands, Orkney does preserve some amazing sites and environments, lost elsewhere.

To really get off the beaten path - and discover some of the best places, for free, jump on a local Orkney Ferry to one of the other islands, like Hoy, Rousay, Westray or Papay. If you take the plane to Papay you are in for a real thrill (best 12 pounds I ever spent - what a view!!!)

On Rousay you find Taversoe Tuick, Midhowe Broch and more 5000 year old constructions (stone age), still there, untouched, mesmerising - like stepping back in time.

Hoy has the incredible Dwarfie Stone - a unique rock with chamber cut out (again by using wood, stone and antler tools - and some ingenuity I wager). Inside you can blow your mind with the acoustics.

Papa Westray has the Knap of Howar houses - 500 years even older than Skara Brae, complete with worn stones and stalls - and you can go right inside, on your own. So when you tire of the queues and guides at Skara Brae and being excluded from the houses because of the pressure of visitor numbers (coach loads), head for peace and quiet at Knap of Howar.

Fondest Memory: Off Papay is an even smaller island, the Holm of Papay, accessed only by a rowing boat (what an adventure that was - the outboard motor stopped, then the oar broke!). On the island is this burial chamber, underground, see picture.

What makes this so special? The sounds, the rock cuts from stone age tools - and the marks scratched into the rock - still not deciphered ... a mystery and a direct connection into the mind of ancestors, humans living before hieroglyphics and Egyptian pyramids ... and you are entrusted with this - the real thing! This is not a replica, or hidden behind glass - this is real. Leave the tourist trail and "interpretation centres" - come and make up your own mind.

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