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Highest point on the Mainland. Orkney Mainland.

Highest point on the Mainland. Orkney Mainland.


Postby Ranger » Tue Jun 07, 2016 1:58 pm

Sub 2000' hills included on this walk: Mid Hill (Mainland Orkney)

Date walked: 13/12/2015

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A spare few hours on Orkney Mainland allowed me to take in the island's (one of 20 inhabited within the Orkneys) highest summit.
From Kirkwall a coach destined for the ferry port at Houton (for Hoy) dropped me at the village of Orphir, overlooking Scapa Flow, where a primary school is neighboured by a dozen or so houses.
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On the approach track

By the noise coming from the adjacent school, the kids were on their lunch break as I set off into more peaceful climes along the track leading to the Orkney clay-pigeon shooting club. As the local wind turbine whirred away, I passed some sheep looking bemused at my presence, hinting this wasn't the most frequented hill in Scotland. There were no signs of activity so I passed the warning signs and side-stepped the building, emerging onto a field carpeted with the decimated remains of pigeons - thankfully all of the clay variety. It was a pathless trudge across heathery slopes, albeit with views constantly opening up behind across Scapa Flow, onto the top of Ward Hill - topped by an odd looking pole but not actually the highest point overall.
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Warning sign on the approach track

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Orkney clay-pigeon shooting building

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Pole on the first top

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Looking from the trig pillar of the first top to the highest point

The acclaimed title of highest peak on the Mainland - the Orkney Mainland - goes to the drably-named Mid Hill. Surely it carries a more romantic norse-based title but not according to the Ordnance Survey. Given this was the crowning summit of all Orkney I was a little surprised to see such a sorry excuse for a cairn, although clumps of peat and heather aside, there were few raw materials available to enlarge it. A biting north-easterly breeze was cutting me in half and, with a flight back to Aberdeen to catch, I didn't need the excuse to dash away downwind in the direction of the main road.
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Modest cairn for the highest point on the Orkney mainland!

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Traversing the first top on its west flank

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Looking to Hoy

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Looking back to the highest point from the west flank of the first top

I flanked around the top of Ward Hill, enlifted by the sun breaking through the clouds, illuminating the heather slopes with an orangey hue, and followed a fence line down to a gravel track. The silhouette of the Island of Hoy stood out starkly, a more enticing, dramatic prospect than the Mainland with higher summits and the famous Old Man hopefully warranting a future visit. The road down was an access to a firing range, deserted today despite more warning signs beside a gate.
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Looking south from the walk back to the road

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Joining the track that heads back to the road

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Warning sign for MOD shooting range

I arrived back at the road and wandered along back to the school from where I had started, in good time to catch the return bus back to Kirkwall. A spectacular sunset was a fine way to end an interesting jaunt before the flight home that evening.
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Waiting for the bus

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Sunset
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Posts: 263
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