06/05/2016 to 12/05/2016 Week Four, Peatwell, Papay, Orkney

Friday 06 05

No plans for today, how lovely.  The rest of the UK has been baking in temperatures of over 20 degrees, our wind drops today, the sun comes out and we have the strangest experience of being out without gloves and 4 layers.

Yesterday's elections have seen a resurgence of the Tories in Scotland. Norman Smith (Radio 4) said the last Scottish Tory meeting he attended had more tweed in one room than he had ever seen in his life, now its headed by a young, gay woman who has made the party attractive and inclusive and tempered by her very left leaning opposition she appears much more middle of the road than Citizen Dave. 

We cycled to North Hill to see an even rarer sight, the peedie primrose that only grows here in the spray of sea salt and flowers in May and July. Then we see our first Puffin.  0nly one but it's a start!

Sunset from Peatwell

 We saw bumblebees for the first time today and found a blackbird nesting in the the eaves of the outhouse, she peers stoically out of her nest as we bumble in and out with our bikes. 

Saturday 07 05

Two good nights sleep was too much to ask for and Lisa was awake from 3.30am. At least we were in plenty of time to listen to BBC Scotland Outdoors Live, a favourite podcast of ours that often accompanys us on our journeys around scotland.  Today they mention the Mama Westray spoof and visit the campsite we stayed on by Loch Ness which, it turns out,was inspired by this programme.

We wander up the hill past Peatwell and along a track we hadn't ventured down before.  We found an empty croft still containing an iron bedstead, one leg propped upon bricks, coal from the last fire in the grate and curtains; very poignant.  An arctic skua flew within a few feet of us several times and we can often see her now from the sun room windows. 

Having had such a crap nights sleep Lisa was in much need of an afternoon kip and so were fast asleep when there was a knock on the door!  We are living on an island that can only be reached by plane on Saturday, Peatwell is down a farm track and we can't be mistaken for another cottage.  Perplexed Alastair puts on his nightshirt and opens the door to three suited and booted Jehovah's Witnesses who must have flown over to perform their ministry.  Well you have to give them 10/10 for effort!  They look Alastair up and down, taking in his 'wee willie Winkie' nightshirt, mutter something about him being 'busy', hand over a magazine and leave.  Poor Jehovahs.

Pub night tonight.

Sunday 08 05

Peatwell has vanished into a cloud.  We can barely see the gulls in the field and it starts raining.  This is a staying in day.  Alastair decides to tackle the stove. Lisa snuggles down in the sun room with 'The Life and Death of St. Kilda' and waits for the entertainment.  Within minutes Alastair is slumped next to her.  All of the windows are open and the familiar acrid smoke fills the house.

Cannot even see the island opposite- Westray

The fire isn't mentioned again and we donate our fire materials to David, the Birdie man.

Monday 09 05

The cloud has lifted, the sun is out and by 9am we are at the new pier with our bikes for the ferry to Westray.  Stuart brought two young people who have to go to secondary school in Westray and we were off.

The ferry Captain had the Dutch version of Penelope so Alastair had a bike envy moment when we arrived and the captain showed off his bike.  A cycle round the Bay and we headed towards Noup Head. There are cars here, two lane roads, people, noise, very wierd.

We visited Westray Castle enroute and Alastair had wobbly legs climbing the stairs to look across Westray.  Balfour who built it was chief of staff to Mary Queen of Scots and he must have been paranoid as it was covered in gun slots.  Although he did end up being executed so maybe not so paranoid.

Noup Head Lighthouse

Guillemots clinging to their rocky shelves

The road turned into a dirt track which Penelope just does not lower herself too so we abandoned the bikes.  We arrived at Noup Head lighthouse which we can see flashing every night from Peatwell and looked over the cliffs to see our first flocks of gannets.

We headed to the coastal path on the East of Noup Head and saw hundreds of gannets perched on nests of what looked like seaweed on the diff stacks, it was an incredible sight.  Guillemots were trying to find spots in between the Gannets to perch.

Gannets!

After lunch, overlooking the cliffs, we tried to find the path back which had been blocked by sheep fences. We made an excursion through barbed wire and over ploughed fields to exercise our 'right to roam' and made it back to the bikes.

Lunch

 Back in Westray Bay we went to the hotel bar, what a novelty.  Sadly they had no draught beer and no Island Hopping even in bottles but it was lovely to have a beer outside in the sunshine.

We caught the 6.15 last ferry back to Papay.

lt was low tide and as we moored we could see the bowels of the new pier. We manhandled our bikes up the pier steps and we were soon cycling home.

The quiteness struck us, only 600 people live on Westray so it is hardly Birmingham but it feels so different, Papay feels like a real island where it can be a struggle, it was so lovely to be back.... and breathe.

Tuesday 10 05

A gentle start after a busy days.  We have done more cycling on Papay in 3 weeks than at home in 3 years.

We bumped into David, the memory stick Alastair put all our music onto for him hadn't worked.

While they sat looking at Davids' laptop Julian arrived.  He brought a box out of his car that contained a razorbill drowned in a thick oil that had been washed up on the beach that morning, a sickening and distressing sight.  Julian was sending the bird for tests on the oil so they could find out whodunnit.  The only good thing is that it seems this is a rare occurrence.

Our stone seats infront of OUR croft

We headed to the abandoned croft on the front and Alastair constructed 2 stone steps for us to sit out of the wind to read and blog.  Alastair had lost several days of blog he had written and he began again.

We headed home after 3 pm for a mamoth cooking session because we are using up all of our supplies to begin the leaving preparations.

As we cooked a mist descended, Westray vanished and it became very quiet and spooky.

Wednesday 11 05

Around Orkney at 7.30am and Julian and the razor bill are headline news.  A second bird has been washed up on one of the other islands. Swallows have arrived and are flying around Peatwell.

We loaded Penelope up with our coal, kindling and fire lights, she has been a brilliant workhorse for us.   We also had Alastair’s second attempt at putting music onto a memory stick for David who hadn't been able to bring his own.  David was at home, we donated our fire materials to him and this time he could download the music... hooray.   

We headed to North Hill and finally the puffins are arriving, we counted 9.    In amongst them Alastair also spotted a diver with a white bill, as we didn't recognise it we agreed to look it up later and both agreed it mainly fitted the description of a "white billed diver' but according to the book they aren't found on these shores so we must have made a mistake.

It looked like we were in for another spectacular sunset so after tea are took our last bottle of Island Hopping and the last of our Hazellburn to the beach and enjoyed a dram as the sun fell.

Nearly Goodbye Sunset with dram

Andrew messaged us to say that on a ' rare breeds' website a white-billed diver had been seen on South Ronaldsay, we were thrilled, we absolutely could have seen one this morning.
 

Around Peatwell we are frequently serenaded by the drumming of the snipe which is an amazing sound.   There area pair that we see with increasing regularity just infront of the sun room, one spends ages having a bath.    Hopefully they will nest nearby.

We headed home to watch 'wild Scotland' but the TV, has decided we can't watch any of the main channels.  After some investigation Alastair manages to adjust it and we caught the second half.
An alarm is set to look for the Merry Dancers as its such a clear night.

Thursday 12 05

There were no Merry Dancers.  Our last full day.

We headed to the hostel to say bye and thanks to Jennifer, the islanders have all made us feel so welcome.  Lisa disgraced herself by getting tearful, this is going to be a painful process.

 We headed to David to tell him about our possible spot yesterday, he didn't seem convinced, we are worried we will be known as the people who made up a corncrake call then a white billed diver spot. 

We headed to North Hill for our last chance of seeing puffins, there were about 6 dotting around today.  We cycled back along the Bay checking out the impressive kelp store renovations and headed for our 'seats' by the croft.

That evening we managed to finish off our wine, whisky and gin.  We will leave here £120 in credit, impressive as we arrived about £130 in debt, petrol the first week took us over our limit .

Friday Ferry from Papay- no roll on roll off here, everything is craned.