WWF Travel Blog

© Kevin Schafer

Naturalist Berit Solstad traveled to Scotland’s Orkney Islands during a 2009 expedition. Here’s what she wrote about this remote archipelago.

The Orkney Islands are currently home to 20,000 people – and nearly 100,000 cows. Among the emerald green pastures, heather-covered hills and scattered dwellings on the Orkney countryside are fascinating and mysterious structures built by people centuries ago – some even 5,000 years ago. The history of the area boggles the mind.

In the morning, we visited Skara Brae, a 5,000-year-old settlement that was partially exposed after a storm in the mid 1800s. We looked down at the ancient rooms, passageways and stone furnishings. Walking into a life-size reconstruction of a Neolithic home, we could try to imagine what life might have been like in that era.

A few miles away, we walked among the tall standing stones at the Ring of Brodgar. Was it a religious site? What were the beliefs of the people who went to the effort of making a circle of large stones? We then visited the magnificent and beautiful St. Magnus Cathedral, which was established in 1173 by the Vikings. Old in its own right, it felt nearly modern and practically new!

In the afternoon, we focused on more recent times. A short ferry ride from Kirkwall took us to Balfour Castle, which is radically different from the ancient dwellings we’d seen in the morning. In the mid 1800s it was built with turrets, towers, extensive gardens – even a secret passageway in the formal library.

Others visited the Highland Park distillery and learned how fine single malt Scotch is brewed and aged. We were treated to some fine regional flavors in the evening. We listened to local musicians play Orcadian music in the lounge, and we started dinner with a taste of haggis and a wee dram of authentic Orkney whiskey.
 
Visit the Orkney Islands during WWF’s Viking Saga expedition, May 24 – June 7, 2010.