I’m also acutely aware of being watched. As if sensing my icy indecision, speckled bowling-ball sized heads rise and dip just offshore. Seals with whiskery noses have locked their dark, marble-like eyes on my every move.
Orcadians call them selkies (never seals) and local folklore goes that these curious sea creatures shed their skin to walk on two legs on land.
“No matter the season, no matter the seas, selkies will appear, inquisitive and curious,” says Jonathan Ford, Papay’s ranger. “Their folklore is embedded on the island.”
Ford moved to Papay in 2015 for the ranger role. One of his duties is to take visitors on tours. He says the highlight is the Knap of Howar, a Neolithic farmstead and the oldest preserved settlement in Europe, occupied more than 5,000 years ago.
We walk to the west coast along narrow roads. We meet a black bull standing boldly on the wrong side of an open gate. Hemmed in by dry stone walls and barbed wire on each side even Ford looks concerned, but after a brief stand-off the bull walks away.
The original doors and stone cupboards of the farmstead are intact despite being perilously close to the sea. It’s proof of how long Papay has drawn people to it.
On the other side of Papay, the red sandstone St Tredwell’s Chapel dates from the 11th century. There are also Viking burial mounds; a boat excavated in 2015 was dated to Norse settlers in 640AD.
After our close brush with the bull, Ford introduces me to the island’s family-run café. Not far from Rose Cottage, the pink bungalow refuge Liptrot rented during her first winter here, it is run by Mel and Andy, from Wiltshire.
I meet their peacock in the front garden first, then a child’s voice shouts, ‘“Mum! People!”.
A door framed with whale bones swings open. “Come on in,” says Mel with a smile. I step inside to find walls decorated with Narnia-inspired tapestries and knitted puffin wall hangings.
I spotted a black hut on the way, which Ford tells me is part of the North Hill nature reserve and used for bird watching. Curlews are Liptrot’s favourite bird – she describes their call as the most “evocative sound of Orkney”.
It was a job with the RSPB tracking the rare (and nocturnal) corncrake across Orkney that helped her reconnect with nature and reimagine her past. She also helped her father with his farm in Skaill on the strip of land known as “the outrun”, turning her hand to lambing.
“The birds are great, the views are great and the sea is fantastic, but you need people,” says Ford later. “It never feels isolated. Community is a very important part of the island and something you don’t get to experience unless you stay on for a bit.”
He says the best way to do this is to go to the Wednesday coffee morning or the Saturday pub night. “Pub” is a loose term for the hostel living room. It is transformed by a pull-out corner bar, a blackboard and ferry haul of booze. It’s cash-only and run on a rota of volunteer barmen.
We get Alistair. He promptly recommends a Papay G&T – no ice, no lemon, flat tonic, mostly just gin – and to sit at any table for a night filled with local chatter, sing-songs and maybe a dance. Visit in the third week of November and you can join the Muckle supper, a community dinner that marks the end of the harvest.
“You eat Homey mutton (sheep from Papay) and it’s served with clap shot: neeps and tatties mashed together with cold beans – that’s the Papay touch,” Ford explains.
After a short flight back to the mainland I check into the Kirkwall Hotel, go for a long walk on the cliffs around Mull Head Reserve in Deerness and peer down into the belly of its Gloup (an opening in the roof of a sea cave).
And over tea and cheese scones at Celina Rupp Barrier View café in Holm, I reminisce on my Papay adventures. Celina is a well-known Orcadian jewellery designer and I spot a framed picture on the wall of her and her team with Saoirse Ronan. This film is an exciting moment for the islands of Orkney.
‘The Outrun’ is released on Friday
Getting there
There are direct flights to Kirkwall from Heathrow, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Dundee and Inverness with Loganair.
Staying there
The Papay Hostel, Beltane House, has bothies from £40 per night and private rooms from £68.
More information
@papayranger
orkney.com
visitscotland.com
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Publish date : 2024-09-24 22:43:00
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