Orkney: Following the footsteps of Viking raiders in the Northern Isles of

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The Brough of Birsay, which preserves the remains of ancient civilisations

Inside Maeshowe on Orkney we were able to read the graffiti carved by Vikings seeking shelter from a winter storm.

We know that the raiding party’s stay for about three days and nights occurred at Christmas in 1153.

Trapped by a snow storm they looked desperately for somewhere to wait it out and found a huge mound rising from the flatlands.

So they climbed to the top, hacked away the stones and then dropped in, one by one, until there were about 300 of the fur clad warriors and a few women huddled in this old tomb.

The ordeal was so intense two of them went mad before the storm lifted and they were able to escape. But by then they had left their runes on the walls with messages such as “Olaf was here”.

They range from the banal “Benedikt made this cross”, to the crude “Thorni bedded, Helgi carved”, to the flirty “Ingigerth is the most beautiful of all women”, axe-carved beside a drawing of a panting dog.

This was the third time I’ve struggled into Maeshowe. Just to be able to stand in the heart of the chamber, the tunnel aligned with the winter solstice so the sun lights it up at the darkest time of year, to see the mini chambers all around where skeletons were found and to be able to see Viking writing is inspiring.

Maeshowe is in the Neolithic Orkney World Heritage Site which includes the remnants of the Standing Stones of Stenness where the four stones that are left form a northern version of Stonehenge.

But to me Orkney is stunning in so many ways. It offers a feast of jaw-dropping ancient sites, set in a constantly changing set of landscapes, skyscapes and seascapes, whose appearance changes with the passing weather; sunny one minute, wet the next, sleet and snow melting to rainbows and more sunshine minutes later.

Not far away is the impressive Ring of Brodgar, a vast 120-yard diameter henge made of tall stones set in a ring on heather-clad moorland, where the soundtrack is provided by the bubbling songs of curlews and the piping of redshank and oystercatchers.

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The Ring of Brodgar, a vast 120-yard diameter henge

Then there’s the beaches; in particular, a white sandy cove that in the Caribbean would be packed with tourists and is Orkney’s historic jewel, Skara Brae.

Looking a bit like a Hobbit village, this Stone Age site lay buried in sand until a winter storm in 1850 blew it away to reveal the homes of prehistoric men complete with the areas for their beds, their hearths and even stone troughs where they kept fish alive before taking them for food, rather like modern restaurants where you pick your lobster.

But the historic ruins never end on Orkney.

On the other side of the mainland is the Broch of Gurness, an Iron Age complex of huge beehive-like structures overlooking Eynhallow Sound where I watched red-throated divers and red-breasted mergansers and where, the day before, we had narrowly missed seeing a school of killer whales.

Then we were off back across the mainland to its northwest tip for the Brough of Birsay which is on an island where puffins live and which is cut off at high tide.

We walked at low tide across a concrete causeway to stroll around the remains of a Viking village and look across to the mainland and the walls of the 16th century Birsay Earl’s Palace where Robert Stewart, Mary Queen of Scots’ half-brother, lived as Earl of Orkney.

At the southernmost tip of South Ronaldsay is the Tomb of the Eagles, which was discovered by farmer Ronnie Simison in 1958. He was walking along the clifftop when his leg went down a hole.

He looked in and was greeted by skulls staring back at him. After spending 20 years studying archaeology, he excavated the hole himself and found another ancient burial mound which you reach, a bit like the tunnelling PoWs in The Great Escape, by lying on a trolley and dragging yourself along by the rope overhead.

To get to the tomb we drove the length of the Churchill Barriers, built after a Nazi U-boat entered the great naval anchorage of Scapa Flow and sank the battleship HMS Royal Oak in 1939 with the loss of 833 crewmen, many of them just boys.

On this causeway, which links the mainland with four islands stretching south towards John O’Groats, is the Italian Chapel, a Nissen hut turned into a Renaissance church by the prisoners of war who built the causeway.

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A human skull and the talons of white-tailed eagles inside the Tomb of the Eagles

They performed miracles turning everyday items such as spoons and cans into works of art. But you don’t even have to leave the capital, Kirkwall, to immerse yourself in history.

The sandstone St Magnus Cathedral is a masterpiece, with plaques and graves which remind you how far flung Orkney’s reach extends. My favourite resident is the tomb of the Arctic explorer John Rae who opened up vast tracts of northern Canada before dying of old age in London in 1893.

His tomb shows him lying down, asleep, his rifle beside him, and clad in Indian leggings. Orkney is also a birdwatcher’s paradise.

It was late May when we visited and there were sand martins and swallows swooping over Skara Brae which 5,000 years ago was, as now, clinging to the edge of Europe.

On the lake by the centre of Kirkwall I found lots of common tern while an oystercatcher was nesting on the pebbles in the centre of a roundabout.

With local expert Steve Sankey of Orcadian Wildlife as my guide I toured the reserves and ticked off little tern, red-throated and great northern divers, hen harrier, redpoll, as well as eider, snipe and black guillemot.

But the most spectacular wildlife sight was at Marwick Head where a monument stands to Lord Kitchener, star of the “Your Country Needs You” poster in the First World War, and the crew of HMS Hampshire which was sunk nearby by a mine in 1916 with the loss of more than 700 men.

In spring and early summer these sheer cliffs looking west to America are home to thousands of seabirds, whose presence is announced on the breeze by the whiff of guano.

We stayed at the Ayre Hotel in a spacious apartment with black tartan carpets in a new annex, dining each evening in the restaurant on salmon steak or scallops or fillet steak with whisky sauce. During the day we ate on the hoof.

Beyond the history and nature, we visited the Orkney Brewery near Skara Brae where, after a tour of its pristine brewing halls, I had a King Haakon burger which to you and me was a very tasty haggis burger followed by dragonhead cake, a chocolate cake with a dash of the local brew.

And of course I sampled beer, which seemed fitting so close to the ancient burial mound where the kings of wassailing, the Vikings, had sought shelter.

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