Mon., May 13th 2019
It’s a miracle–another gorgeous day! We drive up to Tingwall to catch the ferry to Rousay, a half-hour trip northeast across Eynhallow Sound from Mainland. There are a lot of sites, over 100, on this small island–its nickname is Egypt of the north–but first it’s scones, clotted cream, strawberry-rhubarb jam and excellent coffee at the Crafthub in Trumland before our 14-mile trip along the island’s only road. Clearly the Crafthub is a social hub for the whole island’s 200 or so residents. We head off clockwise, exploring Taversoe Tuick burial cairn and Blackhammer Cairn.
Scones at the Crafthub
This link will take you to a humorous but good article on the sights and sites of Rousay: https://must-see-scotland.com/rousay Good photos too.
We don’t walk up the long hill to the Knowe of Yarso but drive on to Midhowe cairn and broch, the most visited site on this island. The original roof of the cairn is gone but this 90 foot long, chambered burial site has been totally enclosed within a hangar-like building with walkways around and over it. Because we can see everything from above and don’t have to crawl about on our knees we really get a good picture of a chambered cairn.
Just a few yards away is the broch from a later period, complete up to a height of about 10, 12 feet.
“Midhowe Broch is one of at least nine brochs that stand along the banks of narrow, dangerous Eynhallow Sound in Orkney. It’s in an excellent state of preservation, especially its stone internal fittings. A water tank, fireplace and room partitions are all visible.” (from Historic Environment)
From there we walk along the beach to the several iron age and medieval sites–a church, the remains of a hall. The link above describes these ruins well as well as giving good photographs. From here we can see Eynhallow (Holy Island) and to the south the broch of Gurness on Mainland.
After eating our BLTs back at our car we complete the circuit of the island. We watch seals cavorting on the Saviskaill Beach and arrive back at the ferry slip with enough time to visit the Rousay Cultural Centre, do a bit of beach-combing and watch a large sailboat dock with 14 musicians on board. They have been traveling around the islands for several weeks and will be playing this evening at the Crafthub, but unfortunately we can’t stay. We’re told they will be playing at the Reel in Kirkwall on the weekend so we’ll try then.
We catch the ferry at 5:30, pick up a few things for tonight’s dinner (fresh tagliatelle and homemade sauce), Jen and I break open the bottle of single malt I bought yesterday and we all watch Queer Eye before heading off to bed.