Explore 'Orkney's Green Isle' - as Graemsay is known locally - passing the two lighthouses, a sandy beach, WWII gun emplacements. You'll probably have this coastal circuit to yourself, the seabirds and seals.
Bog Factor
Minor road, track, rough coastal path, pathless, boggy and sometimes overgrown in places
Graemsay ferry pier.
Graemsay ferry from Stromness (45 mins via Hoy).
HY271055
From the ferry pier go past the toilet and waiting room to follow the road to the left and then uphill, turning right at the top to head towards the Hoy High Lighthouse. Graemsay is a fertile, green island and the road verges are bursting with wildflowers including orchids in the summer months. Most of the population of around 25 people are crofters with some working on Mainland Orkney and some home workers. Children go to school in Stromness after the primary school closed in 1996. Continue down the road but don't turn off to the lighthouse which was built by Alan Stevenson in 1851 and stands at 33m high.
Follow the road as it bends left to pass in front of Sandside House, a large listed farmhouse which has been beautifully restored following a period on the Buildings at Risk Register. Graemsay's old pier, used during the construction of the two lighthouses, is just on the left after the outbuildings. You can either follow the road or head down onto the sand to cross Sandside Beach where parts of the beach are made up of maerl, coral-like pieces that are actually calcified seaweed.
Continue on the road, keeping right to pass the small green community hall. Soon after passing the phone box turn right onto a signed path, through a gate, leading down to the coast. At the shore turn left to follow a very rough, and sometimes overgrown, path along the coast, keeping the fence on your left. Eventually the route crosses a stile and passes an old jetty before continuing on the shore, popular with seabirds, oystercatchers and geese in the summer months - watch out for nests underfoot!
Eventually Hoy Low Lighthouse comes into view and the route passes behind a pebbly beach to reach a fence. Turn left to follow the fence uphill with views to the dumpy lighthouse which at only 12m high was used by seafarers to line up with the Hoy High light to ensure safe passage into this part of Scapa Flow.
When the corner of the field is neared, bear left to reach a gate leading onto the track. Go through it and turn right to head towards the lighthouse. Soon bear left at a signpost well before the lighthouse buildings to go through a gate and then across rough ground to reach the first gun emplacement at the coast. These two gun emplacements were unusual in that they also housed searchlights.
From here keep heading around the coast away from the lighthouse and battery building, crossing a stile with great views to the hills of Hoy across the water. In 1866 The Albion on its way from Liverpool to America, was shipwrecked here carrying emigrants and a cargo of pottery, fragments of which can still sometimes be found on the shore. Many of the people were rescued but 11 drowned including Graemsay man, Joseph Mowat who took part in the rescue and is buried on the island.
Continue until a stile on the left, cross this and follow the fence inland to a gate at the track leading to the lighthouse. Turn right along the track and follow it to a road junction. Turn right to head uphill (signed Coast Path) and follow the road past a croft and picnic bench - again there are good views across to Hoy on the right. Just before another house is reached bear right onto a very faint and rough signed path between fences that leads down to the coast. Here turn left over a stile and keep above the shore to reach the Old Kirk. Now in a ruinous state, go over a stile on the right and alongside the graveyard wall before keeping right to go down steps onto the foreshore. This avoids a rough section above the shore but at very high tide you will have to hack along the rough ground for 250m or take the road inland back past Sandside.
Otherwise take the steps up and continue along the coast in the fields keeping the fence on your left and going through a couple of gates. Eventually at a rough grassy track bear right to descend to the shore at Fishy Geo until a picnic bench and sign indicate where to head inland on a faint and grassy track. This eventually reaches a better track at a bend, keep straight ahead here and to climb gently until the junction with the ferry road is reached. Turn right here to head downhill and along to the waiting room and ferry pier.
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