Stoned on Orkney

When I told people on mainland Scotland that I had visited Orkney, they acted like I 'd gone to the moon. "Why in the world would you go there?" they'd say over their pints. There's a well evolved Scottish belief that the farther North of Edinburgh and Glasgow you go the more into the wilds you've landed... just around the corner from the end of the world. And all the way to the Orkneys? Well, you've just gone round the bend to full looney to go there.

So what brought me to this far off the beaten path location? Scotland was weird enough. No one went there except to play golf and then to go further North, what was the point?

It was a book. Or rather a series of books called the Outlander series that brought me to Orkney. Over 10 years ago one of my best friends recommended a series of books by an author named Diana Gabaldon about a woman who visits Scotland with her husband following WWII and time travels from 1945 back 200 years to 1745 by walking through a split stone in a stone circle. Not a big science fiction fan I decided to give one a try and was hooked on Gabaldon's telling of the history of the Scottish highland and fantastic characters she created. After reading them you can't help but think that every Scottish man is going to be a 6'+ something with long fiery red hair. I know that she has single-handedly increased Scottish tourism in the "women who want romance" column -- all in the mad pursuit of their own "Jamie." NOTE: I had already found mine by the time of the trip, and a good thing too, dudes of that description are light on the ground in Scotland. As bodice ripping as the novels are, the history she recounts paints such a vivid landscape that I had to see it for myself. I was interested in Scotland before but after that I had to see if there were standing stones with magical powers. Enter the Ornkeys. In my pre-vacation research whenever I searched for standing stones the Orkneys kept coming up. Ok, I'll go there! 6 hour dirve from Edinburgh and a ferry ride later, I was there.

On Orkney stone circles dot the landscape. Just like Stonehenge, we don't know what exactly they were used for - rituals, sacrifices, or just meeting spots. We just don't know. Turn a corner and you see the Standing Stones of Stromness and go a 1/2 mile down and you see the Ring of Brodgar on the left. Both are basically in the middle of a cow pasture. At Stromness you even share the space with a couple of sheep who get a regular show watching the tourists stare in awe at the 20 foot stones. So much on farmland, in fact, once people started going there regularly the farmer who owned the land where the Stromness stones are, a very religious fellow I'm told, thought he should blow them up to keep the pagans away. Luckily he didn't complete his destruction.

The morning after I arrived I found myself standing among the ancient stones holding my breath. I listened intently for the buzzing of the passage mentioned in the books. However, over the gale it was hard to hear myself think much less the buzzing of a time portal. I stepped through a split stone within the circle. When I got to the other side it was 200 years ago and I was surrounded by sheep... OR it was 2011 and I was still surrounded by sheep, eating their way steadily across the grassy field, barely giving me a glance. Oh well, I guess I didn't have the power.

I went back later that afternoon, closer to sunset and just after a storm had come through. I was rewarded with a perfect rainbow landing right smack in the middle of the circle!! And I even had my camera for it! For a photography nut like me, it would have been a particular taste of hell for that to happen without my trusty Nikon with me. It was truly a miracle moment among the ancients. I could almost feel them moving around me, smiling at this grown woman hooting and running around like a 5 year-old, snapping photo after photo, wind knotting my curly hair and trying to knock me over, with golden sunshine lighting the hills around me. THIS was ancient Scotland and it was blowing my mind... and everything else it seems!