I’m a sucker for remote-ish, out of the way islands as long as camping isn’t involved. God didn’t invent Stearns and Foster Lux Estate so that I should sleep on the cold rocky ground -- that’d be ungrateful on my part. Don’t you think?
The Orkney Islands are about 10 miles off the northern tip of Scotland. I’d heard that one of the islands has a nifty pair of hills with awesome rock stacks and cliffs. Yeah, you guessed it, me and my love/hate relationship with hiking had to go for a ramble.
It’s a 30 minute ferry ride from Stromness on the Orkney Mainland to the southern island of Hoy. I’m talking about a very small fishing boat which might hold ten people, all standing, at most. A motley crew we were too -- hippied out amateur hill walkers with the exception of two young, charged up, women in the latest storm-the-mountain gear – honestly, they looked like super heroes. I think I hated them at first sight.
I had heard that a family who owned a sheep farm would occasionally take in hikers for a night but this wasn’t an actual B&B. I asked Betty (the woman I was staying with in Stromness) if she’d call to see if it was cool for me to bunk in – the answer was yes. I was thrilled since otherwise I would’ve been sleeping in the fields (there was just one ferry back in the evening and I wouldn't make it back to the pier in time).
Anyway, here I am at the beginning of the trail, having no clue what to expect, sorting out my tiny knapsack, when an older gent greets me and asks if I’d like company for the walk. Well, why the hell not? Sure, sure, one always worries about axe murderers while hiking alone in a remote area on a remote island in a remote part of the world but, hey, life’s all about risk and I’m into extreme optimism -- I hear that’ll be an Olympic sport soon. I’ll get the gold...I’m sure of it.
As it turns out, he was NOT an axe murderer – instead he was the manager of the Stromness Youth Hostel out for a day hike. I noticed his accent was different from the native Orkadians and asked where he was from. London, where he taught medieval literature before bagging it all to follow Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. After the bhagwan was charged with various crimes, in Oregon, the ashram fell apart – at a loss, my hiking partner for the day came back to the UK but sought this out of the way corner, taking up the position of hostel manager.
So, we’re hiking through Rackwick Glen on a sunny, early spring day – the landscape’s rugged and fiercely beautiful, wild foreign (to me) sea birds are cruising over head and here I am simultaneously traveling, via conversation, from Oxford, England to India to the western US to Stromness, now Hoy on this gentleman’s spiritual journey.
This, this is why I travel.
It’s a 30 minute ferry ride from Stromness on the Orkney Mainland to the southern island of Hoy. I’m talking about a very small fishing boat which might hold ten people, all standing, at most. A motley crew we were too -- hippied out amateur hill walkers with the exception of two young, charged up, women in the latest storm-the-mountain gear – honestly, they looked like super heroes. I think I hated them at first sight.I had heard that a family who owned a sheep farm would occasionally take in hikers for a night but this wasn’t an actual B&B. I asked Betty (the woman I was staying with in Stromness) if she’d call to see if it was cool for me to bunk in – the answer was yes. I was thrilled since otherwise I would’ve been sleeping in the fields (there was just one ferry back in the evening and I wouldn't make it back to the pier in time).
As it turns out, he was NOT an axe murderer – instead he was the manager of the Stromness Youth Hostel out for a day hike. I noticed his accent was different from the native Orkadians and asked where he was from. London, where he taught medieval literature before bagging it all to follow Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. After the bhagwan was charged with various crimes, in Oregon, the ashram fell apart – at a loss, my hiking partner for the day came back to the UK but sought this out of the way corner, taking up the position of hostel manager.
So, we’re hiking through Rackwick Glen on a sunny, early spring day – the landscape’s rugged and fiercely beautiful, wild foreign (to me) sea birds are cruising over head and here I am simultaneously traveling, via conversation, from Oxford, England to India to the western US to Stromness, now Hoy on this gentleman’s spiritual journey.
This, this is why I travel.
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