Kirkwall, Scotland: Ancient stones

July 24, 2015

YOU remember the Vikings yesterday, the ones singing John Denver songs? Well, last night they turned up at the campground and set fire to a longboat. We didn't see it - we were too far away and not inclined to watch - but we smelled the smoke.

I'd like to tell you what it was about, but I haven't the least idea. Maybe such things are almost normal here. It's certainly true that many see more link with Norway than soft southerners down in London. It didn't take long to see the first Norwegian flags when the ferry arrived just down the coast.

Lots of Norwegians turned up here back when the centuries had single numbers. And, wondering how they were going to make a living, they set off on pirate raids against mainland Scotland to the south and also against the country they'd just come from.

This struck King Harald Fair Hair of Norway as less than reasonable and within a couple of years he'd snaffled Orkney and made it part of Norway. Then, because of the way things were done then, his successor, Christian I, offered Orkney as a guarantee that he'd pay a dowry when his daughter, Margaret, married James III of Scotland. But Christian never stumped up and Scotland called in the guarantee and Orkney has been part of Scotland ever since.

None of this explains the paunchy Vikings last night but they must have set off a good blaze because it was still smouldering when we left the campground this morning.

Stone-flagged Stromness, sleeping off Viking excess

We rode through Stromness, which the Viking crowds had forced us to skirt. The first shops were opening and there was overnight dampness - and a scattering of plastic beer mugs - on the stone paving that makes up the town centre.

Just a simple plan today: ride round the island and end up at Kirkwall, north of the port for the ferry to John o'Groats. But on the way we were guaranteed ancient relics. Including the Standing Stones of Stromness, an alliteration that even the tourist office couldn't improve.

We played hopscotch all morning with coachloads of German tourists who had the decency to arrive at each site only when we had taken our photos. Except for the last, where every tourist on the island had arrived ahead of us. That, and excavations an hour down the road, are all there is to see if you're a bus traveller. They're even a stop for cruise ships. Down the gangplank, on the bus, off to the tourist sites, back on the bus and return to the gangplank. All in a morning.

That gave us everywhere else to ourselves. The countryside became bleaker, less populated. The shops and bars vanished, evidence that tourists never get this far. It was all short, sharp hills and anaemic villages as grey as seals. Colourless doors, chapels to hold only a dozen, graveyards full of sailors' souls.

In the distance to our left, out by the sea, was a structure shrouded by scaffolding and cloth. We were debating what it might be when a sign told us it was the Kitchener memorial. Karen was at a loss about Kitchener. Maybe you too. He was the towering figure of the first world war in Britain, even though he died in 1916. His was the face that pointed from recruitment posters with the news that "Your country needs you!"

The oldest town remains in Britain, we're told

In those days, generals counted for more than ordinary men. So when he sailed for talks in Russia and the ship hit a mine and sank after only an hour, the monument was to him and not the other 735 who died. In fact only a dozen survived, and that night they began stumbling through sleeping villages, banging on doors for help.

The reason the monument was shrouded was that it has to be repaired. That's led to an ethical debate. It was put there for Kitchener but what now of the others? We live in more enlightened times. We no longer sift men in death by their rank. The people of Orkney paid from their own pocket for that memorial and, now that it has to be rebuilt, the Orkney Heritage Society is fighting for a better deal for Other Ranks.

We'd have turned down there had there been anything but shrouds to see. But now the weather had turned and we leaned on an ever cold wind, through large fields of small sheep, some black, some white, snatching grass with yellow teeth.

The cold is getting to Karen. The thermometer lies. It shows several degrees above freezing but, as the Estonian waitress pointed out, that means nothing in a chilling dampness. We sit in the lee of a house, its door tightened by rope, in front evidence that builders had been working inside. We eat, we continue, we long to get there.

The final run into Kirkwall comes with a red, white and black cruise liner, small by modern standards but the source of bus tourists. It stands in a harbour beside the road. Traffic runs past it, and us, more thickly than we'd have liked, but we're getting there.

In the café, a man who announces that hills hold no fear for him, asks unsolicited whether we'd recommend panniers or a trailer. He was planning some journey I've now forgotten. We explain and he promises to write if he has any more questions. And then his shrivelled and elderly father asks to be taken out and he says goodbye and leaves.

Kirkwall cathedral, built in Scotland's here-but-not-happy-about-it vernacular

We wander into the sandstone cathedral. It's in the here-but-not-happy-about-it style of so many buildings in Scotland. But the inside, apart from its gloomy central aisle, is fascinating.

Note the cheery egg-timer to reassure us that we'll all get there in the end

Ancient commemorative tablets the height of a man's chest are engraved in Latin, from an era when leaving space between words was not yet in fashion. Many had a skull and crossbones. We never found out why.

Early in the war a U-boat slipped into the Home Fleet's base at Scapa Flow and sunk the *Royal Oak* with massive loss of life

On one wall, with the ensign of the Royal Navy, hung the bell of the Royal Oak, the battleship sunk in Scapa Flow that I know will be part of our journey tomorrow. Below the bell, an open book showing the names of those who died.

Tonight we are at Kirkwall's excellent municipal campground, where all is just about perfect and cyclists abound.

The Ba' game. Just join in. Nobody knows the rules anyway

Oh, and I have to add something. If you remember the village that had the pickled parson, you may remember it had a wild game played in the streets, to land a ball in a pond at one end or a stream at the other. Well, Kirkwall goes better. It even has a plaque in the grass outside the cathedral. The game is the Ba' and what makes it so delightful is that it has no rules and that as many people who choose can join in. If you fancy a go, all you do is decide if you're for the Uppies or the Downies. Then you copy everone else.

It's played every Christmas and new year's day and it starts next to the cathedral. It can go on for hours, everyone trying to get a ball filled with cork into some half-defined goal at the other end of the village. You can take any route you like, running down side streets, across gardens and - says legend - along roofs.

What's it all about? I don't think anybody knows.

Or cares.

Today's ride: 77 km (48 miles)
Total: 2,593 km (1,610 miles)

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