As I climbed over a step tree, Papa Westray’s maritime heath opened up before us, colonies of Scottish primroses creating a colorful island scene, dropping gently to the coast on three sides.
There, gentle gorges of enormous boulders cut deep into the interior. Large skuas, known locally as Bonxies – enormous birds with disturbingly beady eyes – eyed me warily.
But it was another bird I came to pay tribute to. At the aptly named Fowl Craig stood a cairn and a burgundy sculpture of a great auk – the ‘penguin of the Northern Hemisphere’ – staring mournfully out to sea.
Sadly, I was more than 200 years too late to see a real great auk, as the statue represents a moving dedication to the last known specimen of this flightless bird in Britain, which was shot nearby in 1813.
The encounter with the razorbill marked a melancholy end to my journey through the outer archipelago of the Northern Isles of Orkney, a collective name for the islands in the waters north of the island capital Kirkwall: Westray, Papa Westray, North Ronaldsay, Stronsay, Sanday and Eday.
They vary in size, some you can walk or cycle, but others you need a car. They are focused on agriculture and are distinguished by isolated farms and low-lying settlements around the safer ports. Rich in archaeology, birdlife and often violently beautiful coastal landscapes, exploring them can feel like you’re in another country.
Papa Westray – affectionately called Papay by Orcadians – is located 20 miles from Kirkwall, more or less on the latitude of Stavanger in Norway. Empty? At a distance? Far from it. Not only is there a vibrant community of approximately 90 islanders, but there is much of interest for the visitor.
Birdlife – from puffins to oystercatchers – is plentiful, but I headed to the Knap of Howar, a Neolithic two-room farmhouse beautifully situated on the west coast.
The Knap, whose walls still stand at their original height, dates back to 3600 BC, making it the oldest stone house in Northern Europe, predating Skara Brae, Orkney’s blockbuster Stone Age location.
Only the Knap’s distance from Kirkwall ensures that it is not overrun by visitors – a principle that applies across the Northern Isles.
I had started my journey on Eday, located in the center of the North Island – in Old Norse Eday means “isthmus island”. I arrived by ferry, but there is also an airport at London Bay, making this the most northerly airport in London.
Eday felt like a real island, a place where people live and work, where tourists do not play the leading role. I headed for the unmissable Stone of Setter, one of the largest standing stones in Orkney.
Wrapped in lichen and 4.5 meters high, the monolith resembles three fingers raised in salute. Eerily, it may have been part of a larger area where the dead were ritually cleansed before burial.
Eday was full of unexpected things. I went to Eday’s Old North School Classroom where, like Mr Benn, I walked through a reconstructed submarine, 60 feet long and 10 feet wide, with sleeping quarters, forward torpedoes and the original toilets of HMS Onyx, which served in the Falklands War .
The components of the submarine HMS Otter were reassembled by Mike Illett, a retired submarine mechanic. “I gathered some parts from the submarine and put them on the mantelpiece,” he told me. “When I got more, I put them in a shed; Then I needed a bigger shed.”
My next ferry took me to the northernmost island, North Ronaldsay, 35 miles northeast of Kirkwall. Another curious standing stone here: this one is called the Stan Stane and – 4 meters high but only 9 meters wide – perforated with a hole in the center.
The gullible accuse a witch of putting her finger through it; scientists think the stone is a locator for calculating a prehistoric calendar. Standing at the Stan Stane, I was struck by the absence of man-made noises. However, the air was full of birdsong, as the island is a globally important bird hotspot and is firmly on migration routes.
Thumping hooves, muffled by sand, broke the silence. A group of North Ronaldsay sheep darted past. They are known for living almost exclusively on the beaches, nourished by a diet of seaweed, which is kept from the heart of the island by a 21-kilometer-long, 19th-century stone causeway.
I spent a day circumnavigating the wall. At South Bay, a beautiful half-mile stretch of sand, both harbor and gray seals were pulled from the water. The beach is popular as a ‘run’ for the sheep, and as I nibbled on my picnic on the receding tide, they scampered past looking for freshly exposed seaweed to nibble on.
Halfway up the island I reached Dennis Head Lighthouse – at 30 meters the tallest lighthouse on land in Britain. On a busy day, Billy Muir, lighthouse keeper for 50 years, will greet you from the top. As I squeaked up the 176 steps, I realized why Billy is understandably reluctant to greet every guest on the ground floor.
Any North Isle invites you to linger, but on Stronsay I only had time to cycle to the wonderfully named Vat of Kirbuster, a natural arch that represents an elemental piece of geology that deserves its place in Orkney’s vast pantheon of surprising clifftop architecture. The edge of the cliff curves inland in a wide arc 45 meters in diameter, with a single block of sandstone serving as a natural lintel. Inside this spectacular geological donut is a gloup (or blowhole), which drops 18 meters into the sea.
The neighboring island of Sanday is well-named (pronounced “sandy”, it unsurprisingly means “sand island” in Old Norse) and is defined by almost 30 strikingly white beaches. The island offers, in my opinion, Orkney’s most exceptionally situated Neolithic tomb, at the end of a walk that is hard to beat for raw beauty.
I started at the Plain of Fidge, a wetland meadow at the head of Cata Sand, a tidal sandy bay that stretches for two miles, flanked by nine-meter-high alpine dunes of glistening sand. One after another, the dunes danced their way across the bay, the exchange of light and water utterly astonishing, the water so shallow that the aquamarine colors looked like a montage of the Caribbean.
The dunes eventually collapsed, making way for the bird-smothered headland of Tresness. Where it tapered to a fingernail I reached a cairn with Stone Age chambers, lapped by the sea. I clambered along wave-cut ledges to the beach and stared into the tomb’s entrance, a low passageway flanked by stones. Because the tomb is free of modern signage, it is a purer experience than many archaeological sites, and can provide a fleeting inkling as to why Neolithic peoples chose certain places for burial.
Westray, the penultimate island on my trip, felt different from its neighbors. With the largest population – about 600 – after a few days in this way the only village, Pierowall, can resemble the bright lights of the city. You’ll even hear snatches of a localized version of Old Norse known as The Norn.
Behind the village was Noltland, perhaps Orkney’s most dramatic castle, with its classic Z plan cut by narrow loopholes. It looked exactly like the kind of place a notorious good-for-nothing would call home – and indeed it did. Built around 1560, the castle was owned by the infamous Gilbert Balfour, concierge to Mary Queen of Scots and was described as motivated by “neither fear of God nor love of virtue”.
The northwest coast of Westray offers some of the wildest and most elemental scenery in all of Orkney. I found walking along the cliffs here to be just that: the coast near Noup Head Lighthouse had simply been decapitated by nature. On a ridge below the lighthouse I sat and watched the seabirds. You’ll definitely see puffins between April and July, but the showstoppers were the gannets returning to their nests, with their beaks full of fish.
All that was left was to go to Papay. There was a passenger ferry, but who could resist the chance to travel on the famous shortest flight in the world – a distance of 2.7 kilometers, shorter than the runway at Heathrow Airport? Understandably, the “terminal” of Westray airport is barely bigger than a garden shed. The safety briefing and taxi took longer than the flight, which was hauntingly beautiful and flew over Papa Sound.
The eight of us were squeezed into a vibrating Britten-Norman Islander and took off into the air – a spectacle that Orkney poet George Mackay Brown described as ‘slow, like a gentle moth in the mist’.
Less than two minutes later, my own moth fluttered to earth and landed with an inelegant bump.
Essentials
How to get there
All North Islands are served by daily flights and ferries from Kirkwall.
Loganair (loganair.com/) flight times range from 8-15 minutes, with fares from £17 one way. Excursion rates apply to Papay and North Ronaldsay, with a return fare of £21 if you stay overnight.
Ferry times (orkneyferries.co.uk) vary from 80 minutes to 2.30 hours depending on stops. You don’t need a car on Papay or North Ronaldsay – bike hire is available locally or in Kirkwall.
Where to stay
All islands have good hostels with private rooms; some also have B&Bs and pubs. The following are excellent options:
Beltane Hostel, Papay (01857 644224; papawestray.co.uk)
North Ronaldsay Bird Observatory (01857 633200; nrbo.co.uk)
Stronsay Fish Mart Hostel (01857 616401; stronsaycafehostel.weebly.com)
Braeswick B&B, Sanday (01857 600708; braeswick.com)
Eday Community Hostel (07789 900950; hostellingscotland.org.uk)
Pierowall Hotel Westray (01857 677472; pierowallhotel.co.uk)
Mark Rowe is the author of Orkney, published by Bradt Guides (bradtguides.com). Telegraph readers can use code ORKNEY25 to get a 25% discount.