Signs of life on Papay

The last Great Auk (a tall puffin-like bird) in Great Britain was shot on the isle of Papa Westray in 1813, but when I arrived by ferry from nearby Westray I felt like the last Great Auk myself. There were Arctic Terns about, but not another of my species in sight. From the pier I walked in the evening sunshine with all my bags for two kilometres, to the Papay hostel. Even though I didn’t see a single human being, I saw evidence of five thousand years of human life: just a hundred metres from the hostel stood The Knap of Howar, which had been occupied by Neolithic farmers around 3500BC and is the longest-standing house in Northern Europe; Holland Farm, which was the home to the lairds of the island for three centuries from the 1700s to the 1900s, stood right next door; through binoculars I saw a water mill last used for milling oats about 100 years ago and, as the hostel door was open, with clean sheets and towels on a nice big bed, I detected the scent of hospitality within my lifetime. But it wasn’t until mid-morning the following day that I met a person, the lass managing the hostel, and asked if I could please spend the night before.

A set of bagpipes and eight surfboards

While kicking my heels in Kirkwall, waiting for a ferry to the isle of Westray, I followed the sound of Amazing Grace to the magnificent St Magnus Cathedral. There, piping out the tune was the surfer I’d met the day before at Skara Brae, a Neolithic village overlooking Orkney’s best surf spot. He and his chocolate-brown dog have been living in a van for five years, and for 15 he’s been busking for an incredible 30 to 110 quid an hour, but often being arrested for the noise. His homely van was undeniably a surfer’s outfit, neatly packed with eight surfboards, one hundred blocks of Mrs Palmers surf wax and framed photos of the classic line-ups he’s surfed. Still, I made no assumptions and asked him if he surfed, then he invited me in for tea. In place of a passenger seat there was a leather armchair facing into the van space, from where he’d watch dvds or entertain an unexpected guest. He told me all about surfing in Orkney, then said he’d join me for a walk along the sea-cliffs, had nothing better to do, was just waiting for waves.

A twilight ride

I was just sitting there in the chips shop below Sandra’s Hostel making use of the wi-fi when Postman Craig came in with his motor-biking gear saying here lassie put this on we’re going for a wee ride and an old man in the chips shop said you should go to Dunnet Head and so we biked over to the mainland’s mostly northerly point passing a village or two and bogs and lochs and broom bright yellow in bloom and when we got to a viewpoint near the lighthouse you could see the cliffs and beaches and the headlands of the northern coastline and Orkney’s Old Man of Hoy and beyond to other lighthouses and sea stacks in the Atlantic and then we saw a footpath along the cliffs and we peered over and saw fulmars gliding and nesting on sheer ledges and guillemots and razorbills too and Craig said hey look at those things and I peered over and those things were puffins PUFFINS they were puffins just sitting there on the tiniest grassy ledge and I couldna believe it cos I waited an hour for the last puffin I saw on the Isle of Staffa in 2005 and I’d seen none on Handa Island a week ago but there in the gloamin were six puffins on their ledge looking up at us perched on our ledge and I didn’t have my camera and I still had my helmet on cos I didn’t expect to see such things and we sat there in the fullness of surprise and when the lighthouses lit up along the headlands and the sky turned pink we biked back past lochs reflecting the pink and a deer appeared from behind the broom and even at 60 miles an hour from the back of the bike I spotted a wading curlew and our hands were as cold as ice when we arrived back at the chips shop.

A postman and a surf at 59° North

I arrived in Thurso expecting to be able to buy what I needed to surf. Thurso East is, after all, one of Great Britain’s most respected surf spots. But instead of surf shops there were surf rats taking part in the international Highland Open professional surf contest. This meant lots of boards, wetsuits, hoods, boots and gloves floating around, and Sandra’s Hostel above the chips shop seemed to be a good place to start catching them. One guy walked into the chips shop at 10 pm, in his wetsuit, having driven seven hours from Edinburgh for a surf. Before I said Hello I said, Fancy selling your board? But he was too cold to talk so we sealed the deal in the morning, at the castle walls near the surf spot. Well, I spent more than I’ve ever spent on his board, but it’s practically new and epoxy 6’3, wide and floaty, good for all kinds of waves, and there were no other boards for sale in town. The best I could do for a wetsuit, hood and gloves, was a size too big. But no boots. So I was forced to surf Thurso East without boots. I surfed it alone too, cos the contest was over and the surfers had flown home to Oz, USA, Brazil. Well, I wasn’t entirely alone. In the hostel I’d met a Scottish postman who’d come to watch the surf contest for his holidays. Since I didn’t have wetsuit boots, he offered to hold my hiking boots and socks for me while I surfed. I could then pull them on the minute I got out the surf. It was a great idea! So there he stood, on the rocks, in the drizzle, holding my boots upside down so as not to get them wet, while I caught waves till my feet got cold. There was no-one else in sight. Just a lassie in the ocean and a postie on the shore.