Things to do in Orkney Islands
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West Coast Walk
One of the best coastal walks in Orkney begins at Kirbest farm car park and leads north for 5.5 miles to Noup Head through increasingly dramatic seacliff scenery (allow three hours one way). Pick up a copy of the Westray Walking Guide leaflet from Kirkwall tourist office or the Haff Yok Cafe.
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Tulloch's
Well-stocked grocery and general store, also home to the village post office.
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St John's Head
The northwest coast of Hoy has the highest sea cliffs in Britain, rising sheer from the ocean to reach 346m. Like the Old Man of Hoy, it's been the scene of extreme rock-climbing adventures, from its first ascent in 1970 (a seven-day epic) to the first free ascent by Scotland's leading climber, Dave MacLeod, in 2011.
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Rousay Tours
Offers guided taxi tours of the island, including wildlife-spotting (seals and otters) and visits to the prehistoric sites. They also provide general taxi service.
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Pump House Cafe
Housed in the Scapa Flow Visitor Centre, this wartime-style canteen serves hearty homemade soups, homebaked cakes and tea and coffee (don't expect an espresso machine, though).
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Orkney Wireless Museum
This museum houses a collection of more than 100 wireless and transistor radio sets from the earliest Phillips radios to the 1960s, plus a fascinating jumble of communications equipment dating from around 1930 onwards, much of it relating to the Scapa Flow naval base.
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Old Man of Hoy
Hoy’s best-known sight is this spectacular 137m-high rock stack that juts improbably from the ocean off the tip of an eroded headland. It's a tough ascent for experienced climbers only but a great walk from Moaness or Rackwick. You can see the Old Man as you pass on the Scrabster–Stromness ferry.
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Noup Head
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) reserve at Noup Head, at Westray's northwestern tip is a dramatic area of sea cliffs with vast numbers of breeding seabirds from April to July. You can walk to Noup Head along the clifftops from a parking area, passing the impressive chasm of Ramni Geo, and return via the lighthouse access road (4 miles, allow two to three hours).
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Midhowe Tomb
Dating from around 3500 BC, the 30m-long Midhowe Tomb, dubbed the ‘Great Ship of Death’, is the longest chambered cairn in Orkney. The vast stone tomb is covered by a modern stone building, and has a suspended walkway allowing you to walk above the main passage and see the 24 stone ‘stalls’ where the bones of 25 people were discovered.
As well as human remains, many bird and animal bones were found in the cave, perhaps meant as food for the deceased. The cairn is 5.5 miles west of the pier and a steep 550m walk down from the road.
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Marion's Shop
Rousay's only grocery store is at the east end of the island, 2.5 miles north of the ferry pier.
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Lyness Naval Cemetery
Established in 1915, this beautifully maintained cemetery contains the graves of more than 650 WWI and WWII servicemen, including sailors lost on the Vanguard, the Hampshire and the Royal Oak, as well as 14 sailors of the German High Seas Fleet that surrendered in Scapa Flow in 1918.
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Knowe of Yarso
A boggy half-mile walk from the road leads to the Knowe of Yarso, a stalled cairn; it contained the remains of 29 adults, and was in use from 2900 BC to 1900 BC.
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Hoy Walks
There are pleasant walks along the low cliffs at Cantick Head at the island's east end, where there’s a Stevenson lighthouse and a poignant memorial to the crew of the Longhope lifeboat; and at the Hill of White Hamars nature reserve, on the south coast.
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Haff Yok Cafe
Pierowall's only cafe is the village's social hub and information centre, offering a selection of homebaked cakes, decadent Westray tablet (Scottish candy made with sugar and butter) and cups of tea served in granny's best china. There's soup and sandwiches for lunch, and a selection of cards, gifts, books and maps for sale. ('Haff yok' is local slang for a labourer's tea break.)
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Hackness Martello Tower
On the south headland of Longhope Bay stands a Martello tower, built in 1814 to protect convoys heading for the Baltic during the Napoleonic Wars (there's another, less well preserved, on the bay's northern headland). The tower and its adjacent gun battery have been extensively restored, and house exhibits detailing 19th-century barrack-room life.
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Dwarfie Stane
The 5000-year-old Dwarfie Stane is the only example of a neolithic rock-cut tomb in Britain, hollowed out of a huge sandstone boulder dropped here by a glacier during the last Ice Age. It lies a 10-minute walk east of the road through Rackwick Glen (signposted from a parking area), beneath cliffs that are loud with nesting fulmars in summer.
An opening in the west side, a metre square, gives access to two small, rounded burial chambers; a large block of stone that once sealed the entrance sits just outside. A concrete repair on the roof (dating from the 1950s) marks where the tomb was plundered at some unknown time in the distant past.
The stone is associated with Viking…
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Castle O'Burrian
Just 1.5 miles north of the ferry pier, a cute little wooden signpost marked 'puffins' points the way to Castle O'Burrian, the most accessible puffin-watching spot in Orkney. A 10-minute walk from the road leads to a clifftop view of the puffin colony on the sea stack's grassy summit; the birds are in residence from late April to August.
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Blackhammer Cairn
Blackhammer, 1.5 miles west of the ferry pier, is a chambered cairn that served as the burial place for a farming community around 2500 BC. Only two sets of human remains were found here, along with animal bones and fragments of neolithic pottery.
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Betty Corrigall's Grave
Betty Corrigall was a local girl who was made pregnant and then abandoned by a visiting sailor in the late 18th century. Shamed and ostracised by the tight-knit community, she hanged herself – but as a suicide, she was denied a burial in hallowed ground. So poor Betty was interred on the high moors near the parish boundary.
Her resting place lay forgotten until the coffin was accidentally unearthed by peat cutters in 1933. Beside the main road, halfway between Moaness and Lyness, it is now marked by a simple white headstone and planted with flowers, the loneliest and most poignant grave in Scotland.
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