Daniel's Impressions Of The Trip So Far ....
Day 1 - Wednesday
Today was, at long last, the final day of school. We'd been winding down for a while, and the inevitable day of freedom had been looming steadily larger until, finally, it was upon us. My Grandad had agreed to bring me home from school and take me back, as my Dad was on a course. After eating my final lunch at home for some time, doing a little last minute packing and hunting fruitlessly for my errant waterproof trousers, I bade my last tearful farewells and set off. On arriving at the school, I found that everyone had got there before me, typically, as I couldn't rearrange my lift to let me help pack [the minibus]. Ah well, never mind. We got in the minibus and finally set off, the seating arrangement being, if memory serves, thus:
PB = Phil Brown; AG = Adam Griffiths; RY = Rich Young; SC = Sam Coe; DW = Daniel Whisson; RE = Rich Ellison; SJ = Samuel Johnson; RG = Robin Griffiths; AL = Adam Lewis; CG = Chris Gallant; RH = Rob Hayes.
[The seating arrangements were generally very similar for the whole expedition]
Our first leg of the journey was to drive ever northwards, until we left the country and could camp in Gretna Green. I passed the journey doing nothing much. We held an ongoing competition to encourage passing lorry drivers to honk their horns, and achieved quite a few.
Gretna Green was a very nice campsite, and our first night spent on Scottish soil. We played about with the two "novelty flying discs" a bit - Rich [Young]'s Aerobie Squidgee Disc and Samuel's Flying Ring. I'm not very good at throwing frisbees, it seems.
The camp site was a nice area, and next to a river. We ate eggs, bacon and sausage for tea (though I didn't have any sausage). Troll told us that we had an early start tomorrow, and to be ready by 7 am. Accordingly, Rich set his watch alarm for 5:30 am. Our tent party consisted of me (obviously), Samuel Johnson and Rich Young.
Day 2 - ThursdayGot up at 5:30 am. No one else was up - assumed they'd be up soon. I took my binoculars and bird book and went bird watching. Pesky things wouldn't stay still - identified a robin and a baby robin for sure, and couldn't quite identify the numerous yellowish birds, or the other ones. Never mind.
Time passed, and the rest of the party began to stir. We set ourselves to packing away. 7 o'clock came and went, and still no sign of movement from Phil and Troll's tent. Eventually they got up, and told us they'd been joking about the time, and we wouldn't even be able to leave the campsite until 9 am. Grrrr .......
Took some comedy photos, and some normal ones, before we set out, in front of both the 'Welcome to Scotland' and 'Welcome to England' signs. Adam wearing Scream mask, goggles, fishing hat and burglary invoked much hilarity.
We set off again, continuing until we got to Perth for lunch. I'm missing out the various service station and supermarket stops, as I can't remember exactly when each happened. At one supermarket Adam bought me some apple doughnuts and himself the goggles and Rob and Rich Ellison both bought a hat. At one service station they sold toothpaste replacing sweet type things from a dispenser.
Anyway, back to Perth. We stopped in a very nice park for lunch (the something or other gardens). We ate, and played with the Frisbees and Samuel's small rugby ball. It got lost severely in some scrubs, but we found it eventually. We then went into Perth to look around. There was a small competition to get the most amusing item for 50p or under - Adam's porn star pose pig won. Adam and I dropped back a bit from the rest of the group to look for batteries for his camera. Tried about 5 camera shops + Argos - a few of them did the batteries, but invariably at a price of £10 each - ridiculously expensive! We also went into some 99p and charity shops. The PDSA charity shop was amazing - all children's books cost 10p, and that included Discworld (by Terry Pratchett) books. I got three of them and "The Siege of White Deer Park" (by Colin Dann) from the Animals of Farthing Wood series. We returned to the bus, running as we were slightly later than the leaders said we should be (owing to the fact that the PDSA checkout person was on the 'phone), got back and found that they themselves hadn't yet arrived. Typical!We drove on, and on, and on, and finally got to the next campsite, in Dingwall. The journey was interspersed with encouraging lorry drivers to honk, as before, and watching a large herd of deer on one of the mountains. Dingwall was apparently the Viking capital of Scotland, the name coming from "the Thing" set up by one of the Viking kings there. It was some kind of judicial thing. The landscape was dominated by an impressive tower, the memorial of one Hector McDonald. The campsite we were staying at, though it apparently welcomed non-members, didn't seem to like non-members. We had to behave well, and be quiet at 'night' [which started at 10pm - 90 minutes before it got properly dark!]. The tents changed round a bit. The first night, Samuel, little Rich and I slept in the Proxima (and very nice it was too); Sam, Chris and Rob slept in the Vega and Adam, big Rich and Robin slept in the VE. Rob broke the Vega pole when they were putting it away in the morning. (Partially, perhaps, because everyone else had been putting that group's tent down whilst they were still in it. Rob put it slightly back together before trying to take it apart again, and sat on a pole.) Therefore, their group stole our Proxima, and left us the Vega, which we had to mend.
[Rob wants me to say he didn't accidentally sit on the pole, he stupidly over bent it.]
Day 3 - Friday
Sam Coe broke our Proxima. The one they stole. They broke their tent, so they stole ours and broke it. Then they stole the Vega back, as it was slightly less broken. Leaving us with the broken Proxima. Grrr ..... They only need Chris to break the VE now and each one of their members will have ruined a different tent.We drove on to the ferry terminal at Scrabster. I didn't feel completely well in the minibus, and felt slightly worse on the ferry, causing me to abandon some of my fish and chips - though I ate most of it. [This meal was purchased on the ferry.] By this time, I think, I had finished reading Rich Young's copy of "The Colour of Magic" and my own version of "The Light Fantastic" (from the PDSA shop), moving on to Wyrd Sisters. It could have been this reading whilst driving that caused some of my queasiness, and I normally try to avoid it, or it might simply have been the motion of the waves. Nevertheless, I felt better on the ferry's deck, in the wind and light rain - well enough to venture back inside for some Knockout Whist.
Our first glimpse of the Orkneys came as the ferry sailed past Hoy, offering a good view of "The Old Man of Hoy," a lone sea stack which Troll dearly wants to climb.
We set up camp in Stromness, the second largest settlement on the islands. This campsite would be where we stayed for most of our time on the island, and we would come to know and love the little town.
Stromness has one major road, which goes all the way through it, originally from our campsite. It doesn't have that much in it. On our way in [to town, from the campsite] there was a cannon, a well, a museum, a library, some shops, houses, a few other buildings and the Co-op (which is an obscenely long way from the campsite, as I found out when I foolishly volunteered to go and get milk once ....). Our campsite was also quite nice. Since it was so crowded when we came, we were shunted into one small edge next to the sea and the golf course. The main building of the campsite was also very nice, with toilets, sinks, leaflets, washing machine, and a lounge complete with television! (On request). We spent about two nights watching the telly after the day's activity, and it served well to remind us of the civilisation we were missing.One thing some of the Scouts (Adam and Samuel) persisted in trying was the activity of fishing. The first night they were unsuccessful - probably because they were using old plums as bait, and there weren't any fish.
Activities were to begin the next day, so to prepare we went into town looking for a bar. (Well, not me, as I'm teetotal, but I was with them). We went into the Ferry Inn, where I found that the small islands in the bay by Stromness were called Inner Holm and Outer Holm. Sam had earlier said that he'd like to set up his own private country on one of them.
I felt rather uncomfortable in the pub, as I was under 18, even though I didn't drink anything [plus it was noisy and crowded, and the only thing to do was stare at the map on the tabletop showing Inner and Outer Holm]. Adam had a coke, and then we left.
Day 4 - Saturday
Our first morning on the Orkneys dawned with rather miserable looking clouds and the promise of rain. Most of the party, the exceptions being Rich Young, the ESL, Troll and me, were going to do a Duke of Edinburgh Gold Exploration. We drove in the minibus to a spot on the main island, and left them just as it was beginning to rain. Poor them. [Tee Hee!]
Owing to the inclement weather we were unable to do any walking ourselves. Instead, we went to the main city of Kirkwall, and started looking for a coffee shop. I had carrot cake and milkshake (strawberry), Rich had hot chocolate + marshmallow and some kind of toffee chocolate cake, and Phil and Troll/Adam had coffees and carrot cake. In hindsight, now that our funds are seriously depleted and we have practically nothing to survive on for the next few days, perhaps this was a waste of money .... Tasted good at the time though! After this, we visited a bookshop in Kirkwall. Rich bought a book of stupid things said by politicians, heavily featuring George W. Bush.We then went swimming. The Stromness swimming pool was offering free access to under 18s, so we took them up on it and went in. It was very nice there, and Rich and I practically had the pool to ourselves. We stopped at the Co-op on the way back to the campsite, and found the somewhat bedraggled D of E group who had just got in and were fortifying their flagging spirits by buying extra rations.
Back at the campsite, we had tea and watched the telly for the first time, before going to bed. Tomorrow we were headed for Hoy, the second largest island on the Orknies. [Don't know why I spelt it like that???]
Day 5 - Sunday
A relatively early start this morning, as we had to pack up the tents and be in Stromness in time for the ferry. I missed out on breakfast this morning. We'd normally been eating packets of Alpen - cereal you can just add water to, then eat out of the bag.
The crossing to Hoy was on the smallest ferry we used in the Orknies [odd misspelling again!] - the MV Graemsay. I spent most of the time outside, looking for good photos - I used up my two disposable cameras at a horrendous rate.
On Hoy, the D of E group left and the remaining four of us had some breakfast - Orkney thins [oatcakes], apple smoked cheese and marinated herring. After an hour or so we set out. The journey was very beautiful, and about four miles long, across the island between some big hills. We passed Ward Hill, Sandy Loch and came to a large area of heather and moorland. It was very scenic. For most of the way we seemed to be walking inside a stream [dried up], with lots of rocks. There were several large caterpillars on the path, and lots of butterflies flitting about, as well as some moor dwelling birds. We saw several meadow pipits and a stonechat, hearing at least one other stonechat. The meadow pipits would hide in the heather until you were nearly on them, then suddenly fly away.
We finally got through to the other side of Hoy, and the main village of Rackwick. Here, the Hoy Trust had thoughtfully provided a bothy which was open to the public, complete with all mod-cons - running water, toilet, fireplace, roof, etc. The only problem was the lack of drinking water. By the time we arrived, the D of E group had already seized the opportunities offered by the bothy - ie they wouldn't have to set tents up. Troll and Phil decided we should set ours up anyway, as they had carried them this far. Rich was sharing Troll/Adam's Northface and I was with Phil in the Hydra.Some other people left the bothy after we arrived, leaving us with bacon and sausages for tomorrow. Some of the D of E-ers had been incorporating it with their geography projects - Chris was studying the depth, speed, etc of a river, and Rich was measuring the slopes of hills facing opposite ways. They were away doing this when we arrived [we actually met them as we got near the bothy on the way there], leaving Sam Coe and Robin behind, and an ideal card playing opportunity. Once they returned, tea was soon on the go - we [Phil, Troll, Rich and I] had rice, curry, naan bread, golden syrup puddings and custard - very nice it was too. After that, a roaring fire was set up by mainly Samuel Johnson. Orkney suffers a serious lack of trees, making finding firewood a near impossible task. We then sat round the fire talking late into the night.
I'm going to go to bed now. I'll write the rest of my log later. It's Day 11 at the moment.
[Here the ink changes from black to blue]
Now that we're back on the mainland, and stationary, I can finish some more of my entry.
Day 6 - Monday
Today was our first (and only) morning on Hoy. I got up quite early; well, earlier than everyone else. Went into the bothie [random change in spelling is for no apparent reason ...] and they were all still scattered about asleep. Found Samuel's cards and played Patience (Solitaire) to while away the time.Eventually, everyone woke up and we had breakfast - a sachet of Alpen and two slices of bacon for me. After breakfast Adam, Troll and Phil left to see the old man of Hoy. Rich E, Rich and Rob went to finish Rich's hill geography coursework, but Samuel and Chris had time to spare, so we sat in the bothy and played cards for a few hours - the easiest Gold D of E ever, as Chris remarked! We mostly played a game that Adam Griffiths had taught us the day before, but I will not write its name as it contains a swear word. The aim is, mainly, not to come last - owing to Sam Coe's run of luck the day before in coming first, we were all glad that he came last three times.
[How to Play ****head ....
Each player is dealt three cards to their hand and three face down in front of them. Play goes in a clockwise direction, beginning on the dealer's left. You must play from your hand a card of equal or higher value to the card on the table, replacing the card you played from the stock so that you always have at least three cards in your hand, until the stock is depleted. If you cannot play, pick up all the cards and the person to your left begins next time. If you hold more than one card of the same value, you may play them at once. Aces may be played at any time (they count as one). Tens may be played at any time - they "burn" the pack, causing all cards on the pile to be discarded. If a seven is played, the next person must play equal or lower to it. Threes may be played at any time - they give you another go. If ever all four cards of the same value are played consecutively, the pack is burned. One the stock is exhausted and a player holds no cards in his hand, he plays from the three facedown cards, but without looking - should it have proved an illegal move, he picks up. A player is out once he has used all his cards up, and the last player left in is the loser.]
Once the three who had been to the old man returned, we set off to return to the ferry pier. This time we took the 6 mile road - Adam, Phil, Troll and myself taking the journey. We passed the Dwarfie Stone, and on the whole had quite an easy and quick walk, beating the others (who had done the 4 mile walk) back.
Back in our good old Stromness campsite we again spent the evening watching the telly.
Day 7 - Tuesday
Today we planned to do some more 'touristy' type things. After waking up, we travelled via the Churchill causeway type things to some of the nearby islands - Lamb's Holm, Barray, etc.
[Black pen again.]
We visited first the Italian Chapel. This building was created by Italian POWs kept on Lamb's Holm during the Second World War. Given the conditions and materials they had, they created a really beautiful little building. We looked around, and then had some lunch.
From here we travelled on by more of the causeways to the island of Barray, where we visited a fossil museum. It was quite interesting, but the lighting was such that all my digital photos, except for the glow in the dark fossils, came out badly. Rob bought some presents, and found he only had about £40 - £50 left from his original £80 - £90, and couldn't remember how he'd spent most of it. Money seems to go through his hands like water ....
In the fossil museum's café a new game was invented. Following Samuel's blushing as he was served by a rather attractive young lady, Adam (G) challenged Chris (also G) to get a photo of the other waitress wearing a VSU top. Chris managed to do this, and thus was a new sport born - to get as many photos as possible of lasses wearing our VSU tops. After visiting the museum we returned to Kirkwall and had a look around. We then all went swimming in Stromness. It was a lot more crowded this time, and to stop the rest of them messing around the lifeguard threw some hoops into the water to see if they could swim through them all with one breath.
I think they went to the pub again that evening .... but not the Ferry Inn!
Day 8 - WednesdayAnyway, yesterday it had been decided (in Kirkwall) that we would split into several groups and visit different islands. Originally, Adam, Samuel and I formed one group. Looking at the Kirkwall tourist centre, I quite fancied visiting Westray. Adam, though, wanted to visit Papa Westray, and Samuel wanted neither. Before we could choose, though, the groups were reshuffled, and owing to ferries we could only to Sanday or Eday. Thus the final groups were as follows:
Eday - Phil, Rich (E), Rob, Robin
Sanday - Adam, Adam, Rich (Y), Samuel, Sam, Chris, Daniel
Having mostly packed last night, we merely had to put away our tents this morning, and set off for the Kirkwall ferry terminal. The ferry was the MV Earl something-or-other. Whilst out to sea, a heavy mist dropped, obscuring nearly everything. We dropped the geologist/Eday group off, and continued on to Sanday. The fog still hadn't lifted, so we could see nothing.
As you will see if you look at a map, Sanday is annoyingly long. We were faced with the prospect of a 5-6 mile walk to get to the campsite, but luckily a man was just leaving the ferry pier in a large vehicle and trailer. We agreed on a rate of £1 each for the journey, and he left to come back later and pick us up. In the meantime we wasted the school camera's batteries and memory card taking pictures of Little Rich in odd places.The man did come back, eventually, and transported us to the Ayre's Rock campsite - on the way he told us that he took people on sea kayak expeditions and if we were interested it would be about £11 per person. Troll seemed quite interested in the expedition, and promised to ring him later.
The campsite was quite a nice place. It was relatively cheap, and the facilities were quite good - there was a shower, toilet, drinking water, washing facilities, and in the house was a takeaway and internet access (50p an hour). After setting the tents up, we left to explore Sanday, deciding to visit the two main villages - Kettletoft and Lady. On the way we discovered what Sanday was like - basically, it's one big cow farm. There are a few roads, with very rare cars, and some fields with cows in. People are practically non-existent.
The cows seemed to quite like people - they'd run up to the fence, chasing after you when you went past, and mooing. We saw one particularly nice cow which we duly photographed.
On arriving in Kettletoft, we found it was much ....
[Here ends what I wrote during the trip. It now being several months later -it's actually New Year's Eve now at five to eleven pm - my memory of the trip is a little sketchy, but I'll try to fill in a few blanks ....]
Kettletoft was quite a small village, though I could be getting it confused with Lady. There was a harbour with some boats that looked like they'd never be afloat again, the water was so far down, and a small general shop selling everything from food to toys and appliances. There was a pub. We also found a bank, that was very small and only open on Tuesdays. We walked to Lady, and I can't remember much about it - possibly half the things I said about Kettletoft are actually about Lady.
The roads of Sanday, though so scarce of traffic, are remarkably full of dead birds and animals. We passed lots of corpses of seagulls, rabbits, etc stretched out by the side of the road. Perhaps cars are so rare that when one does come it takes all the wildlife by surprise. Or maybe there aren't any scavengers on Sanday.
By the side of one road, we found a car number plate thrust into a fence. Being members of the 44th VSU, we took it. It's now residing in our Scout hut. Some poor cow farmer's probably still looking for his tractor's front number plate .....
We arrived back at Ayre's Rock and probably had some tea. It might have been now that we took advantage of their Internet and went online. In the evening we walked back to Kettletoft and went to the pub there. Some people played cards, whilst two at a time played pool, the winner staying on. Amazingly, all seven of us managed to win at least one game. Walking back to base we decided to get up very late tomorrow.
Day 9 - Thursday
We got up very late today. We started eating breakfast, but it became lunch about halfway through. Waking up little Rich is very hard - he seemed to go straight back to sleep as soon as he was moved. And his snoring! The noise was horrendous! Troll recorded some of it onto his phone.
After lunch, Samuel, Adam and I went to explore the beach. Everyone else stayed in the tent playing cards, lazily. After their earlier fishing disappointments on Mainland Orkney, Sam and Adam were determined to catch something. The beach was really very rocky, and barnacles and limpets were everywhere. Using a discarded buoy as a float, and some limpet innards as bait, a make shift fishing line was set up. We left it whilst walking on around the beach. As we progressed, the shoreline became steadily more and more of a rubbish dump, until eventually we were just walking through what was obviously the island's tip. There were enough parts to make several cars, tractors and home appliances, all very rusty. We decided to head back to a nicer part of the beach - though really, none of it was that nice. It consisted of large swathes of rotting seaweed, treacherous barnacle coated rocks and rubbish. The best bit was probably the rock pool area. Here, we found what Adam and Samuel had been searching for - some fish. Several rock pools housed small brownish fish, and Samuel and Adam realised this was their chance to catch some. Taking a jar off the rubbish piles nearby, they managed to trap a fish. It was here I left them to pick my way back to the tent.
I joined in the card games, and Samuel and Adam soon returned with the fruits of their labours - three fish in a jar. Adam used his digital camera to prove that they caught them.
In the evening, we three again set out, this time the other way along the beach. It soon became clear that this way was much nicer - if only we'd come here whilst it was light! There were lots of cliffs and coves, with several sea birds nesting on the rocky ledges such as cormorants and shags. I tried taking some photos but due to the dim light they didn't come out all that well. We found several fulmar nests with baby birds in. On approaching, the mother bird would fly off. Adam then tried to creep as close as possible to take photos with his digital camera. On this, the fulmar chick would projectile vomit towards him. Adam surprisingly didn't notice them doing this at first, until we pointed it out .... all over his fleece! We got some nice photos anyway.
Day 10 - FridayToday we had to leave Sanday. We got up quite early and set off to walk back to the ferry terminal. The cows in the fields we passed behaved quite oddly - they'd keep following me, keeping level alongside the hedge and then running in a herd. Perhaps they don't see humans very often ....
We stopped for a rest at the turn off to the northernmost railway in the UK. I went down the path to see it - it's one of those sit on railways you sometimes get at theme parks, in someone's back garden. It was closed. Coming back to the path where we were resting someone began a great stone fight. The road there was covered in loose stones, small light ones, which were just asking to be thrown at people. So we did. The fight lasted about 15 minutes, probably.
We got to the ferry terminal eventually, and got on when it came. We were reunited with the group from Eday, and returned finally to the mainland. As before I spent most of the ferry crossing on the deck to prevent any travel sickness.
It being a good few months since we were on the Orkneys now, my memory is a little hazy and I can't remember exactly what happened when. I think we spent the night in the Kirkwall campsite, as well as seeing some more of the town. I got three Frijj milkshakes from Safeway's, I believe .....
Day 11 onwards - the return journey southOn mainland Scotland, we must have spent three further nights. One was in some farmer's garden. The insects were quite terrible, but we got a nice free campsite due to some great begging. One was in Oban, I think. We 'stole' a night at the campsite, as it was ridiculously over expensive and there was no-one around when we arrived or when we left. We sneaked in, set up our tents next to the public car park just opposite the main site entrance and slept the night, before leaving early in the morning. The third was at Gretna Green again.
We had several activities on the way home. In Oban, we visited the whisky distillery. We learnt all about the history of the site and how to distil whisky before the adults got some samples of the end result. It was very interesting. We also stopped off in Fort William and climbed Ben Nevis. Due to Scout insurance requirements, not all of us were allowed to climb the mountain with only one mountain leader being present. I only went halfway up with Phil (who got very chatty with some Dutch women). I texted home from the halfway point, and then we went down the other side of the mountain. The scenery was stunning - fabulous rock formations, water streams, etc. It was a bit hard going though.
From the map, it looked as if the footpath went a long way down into a valley, whilst going downhill, then turned around and went along the opposite side. We thought we could cut out a lot of the journey by going straight down the side of the valley and up the other side. It didn't quite work out like that - hidden dips and severe marshy bits forced us back up the hill to take the proper footpath.
We must have walked a pretty long way until we eventually got down the mountain, around it and back through Fort William, via the supermarket to the car park where the minibus was. The views were worth it, though my legs were killing me by the end. Our journey home continued, and all too soon we left Scotland. I used the last of my film photographing Loch Ness (before we reached Ben Nevis, so I couldn't take any of the mountain). Eventually we returned to school, and, from there, home again.