There's More to Orkney than Fudge, day 1 - 14 September 2014

In the 70's  I used to treat myself to Orkney Fudge sometimes on my way home from school.  It was sold by the quarter from an open box (no sealed plastic in those days when germs were all the rage), and I was delighted to find it was still available when we were in Edinburgh earlier this year.  I'm not sure if it was the fudge, or Simon Schama  that helped me to make my decision to visit Orkney but whichever it was I'm glad they did.

After visiting Edinburgh as part of my engagement with the referendum and my own personal 'no thanks' campaign a second trip further north of Scotland was promised, and on Sunday 14th September 2014 we set off for Kirkwall, the capital city of Orkney situated in the middle of the mainland.  It's not possible to fly direct from London so we changed at Edinburgh onto this very small plane and arrived an hour an a half later at the only airport I have ever been to where the parking is free.  One of the benefits of a very small airport was that our bags came through the hatch almost at the same time we came through the door and our taxi driver was waiting beside the belt.

We had no idea what to expect when we arrived so I phoned ahead from Edinburgh for a taxi to meet us and take us the 3.5 miles to our hotel. This turned out to be the only negative experience of the trip as it cost £8.50.  We should have taken the bus.
There are more than 2 taxis in Orkney but it amused me that we were conveyed by licensed taxi No 2.

We arrived at the West End hotel in the late afternoon and checked into our suite. Robert and Giffie were wonderful hosts (see reviews on Tripadvisor and also featured in the September 2014 issue of Living Orkney magazine) useful with recommendations of where to go and when and helped with car hire and info re getting around.


We relied on shanks pony, bus and ferry for the first two days with great success when we planned properly and referred to the timetable (not for the legs obviously).

We had a moving start to our exploration of the islands with a visit to the cathedral which dominates the city of Kirkwall.  Inside we saw our first union flag of the trip and found this memorial to the 833 men who lost their lives after HMS Royal Oak was torpedoed in Scapa Flow on 14 October 1939.  I had Scapa Flow on my list of things to see but I had no idea quite how important Orkney, with its population of only 20,000, is to British history, particularly during the two wars of the 20th century.  

After getting our bearings around town, finding the bus station and shops we went back to the hotel for a drink in the bar and chat with our host and a delicious dinner in the hotel restaurant.  We had Orkney bas for starters which were lovely sort of haggis and black pudding tempura served with a whisky sauce.  We found out what the ba was the next day at the Kirkwall museum.

Left is a view of the sitting room of our suite.  I felt a little bit like I had wandered onto the set of Dr Finlay's Casebook (which is available on DVD apparently).