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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.
- 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.
- Warning sign on the approach track
- Orkney clay-pigeon shooting building
- Pole on the first top
- 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.
- Modest cairn for the highest point on the Orkney mainland!
- Traversing the first top on its west flank
- Looking to Hoy
- 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.
- Looking south from the walk back to the road
- Joining the track that heads back to the road
- 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.
- Waiting for the bus
- Sunset