Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
ACCOMMODATION
Ayre's Rock
T
01857 600410,
W
ayres-rock-hostel-
orkney.com.
If you're on a budget, this is a great place to stay:
a well-equipped eight-bed hostel, a caravan, and a small
campsite (with several camping huts for hire) overlooking the
bay, with washing
and
laundry facilities,
a c
hip shop (every
Sat) and bike rental.
£15
/person; camping
£5
/pitch
Braeswick
T
01857 600708,
W
braeswick.co.uk.
Despite the dour exterior, this B&B is a good choice. Just a
couple of miles from the ferry terminal, it has very
pleasantly decorated rooms and free wi
-fi,
and the
breakfast room has lovely views over the bay.
£70
Newquoy Guest House & Writers Retreat
T
01857
600284,
W
newquoy.com.
The old school in Burness, in
the north of the island, is now a B&B run by an enterprising
couple
who
put on writing courses and storytelling
evenings.
£70
Retreat Tea & Coffee Shop
T
01857 600284,
W
newquoy.com.
The owners of
Newquoy
also run a fine
café serving soups, toasties and delicious home-baked
cakes all served on vintage crockery.
May & Sept Tues &
Thurs noon-4pm; June-Aug Tues, Thurs & Sat
noon-4pm.
North Ronaldsay
North Ronaldsay
- or “North Ron” as it's fondly known - is Orkney's most northerly
island. Separated from Sanday by some treacherous waters, it has an outpost
atmosphere, brought about by its extreme isolation. Measuring just three miles by
one, and rising only 66ft above sea level, the only features to interrupt the flat horizon
are
Holland House
- built by the Traill family, who bought the island in 1727 - and
the two lighthouses at
Dennis Head
. North Ronaldsay has been inhabited for
centuries, and continues to be heavily farmed, with
seaweed
playing an important
role in the local economy.
15
Bird Observatory
he island's most frequent visitors are ornithologists, who come to clock the rare
migrants who land here briefly on their spring and autumn migrations. he peak times
of year for migrants are from late March to early June, and from mid-August to early
November. However, many breeding species spend the spring and summer here,
including gulls, terns, waders, black guillemots, cormorants and even the odd
corncrake - the permanent
Bird Observatory
, in the island's southwest corner, can give
advice on recent bird sightings.
The Lighthouses and the Wool Mill
Exhibitions
May-Aug daily 10am-5pm • Free •
Guided tours
: May-Sept Sun noon-5.30pm; at other times by appointment • £5 or £7
with the Mill •
T
01857 633297,
W
northronaldsay.co.uk
he attractive, stone-built
Old Beacon
was first lit in 1789, but the lantern was replaced
by the current huge bauble of masonry in 1809. he
New Lighthouse
, designed by
Alan Stevenson in 1854 just to the north, is Britain's tallest land-based lighthouse, at
NORTH RONALDSAY SHEEP
The island's
sheep
are a unique, tough, goat-like breed, who feed mostly on seaweed, giving
their flesh a dark tone and a rich, gamey taste, and making their thick wool highly prized. A
high
dry-stone dyke
, running the thirteen miles around the edge of the island, keeps them
off the farmland, except during lambing season. North Ronaldsay sheep are also unusual in
that they refuse to be rounded up by sheepdogs like ordinary sheep, but scatter far and wide
at some considerable speed. Instead, once a year the islanders herd the sheep communally
into a series of
dry-stone punds
near Dennis Head, for clipping and dipping, in what is one of
the last acts of communal farming practised in Orkney.
