Orkney Part 10

St. Magnus Way: Orphir to Kirkwall, and the Italian Chapel

In which Lis completes her first pilgrimage and promptly loses her walking poles.

During breakfast Margaret noted that the high winds were blowing in the correct direction so they wouldn’t blow me off the cliffs. Good to know.

Somehow there was blue sky above the house as I left, even though it had been pouring buckets all morning.

The first section was by Waulkmill Bay across a wetland. I resigned myself to a very wet day of walking.

Waulkmill Bay glitters in the morning light.

High above the bay on a fairly lonely stretch of road stands one of my favourite things about Orkney (and Scotland in general): the public toilets! And mostly they are very clean and well maintained (with the exception of the one in Birsay, which is a bit dire, but still far better than some Ontario Provincial Parks toilets I’ve been in recently.)

The sun did come out as I was walking through a RSPB bird reserve, but not pictured here is the part where I was miserably fighting my way through driving rain and high winds.

And then sun again – as always, the weather changes quickly here.

One of the final sections before entering Kirkwall was across some very flooded grassland – for a while I was wading though 3-5 inches of standing water. The benefit was that my shoes got all the mud washed off before the end of my journey.

At last I arrived at the St. Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall, after 6 days of walking, and 58 miles (93 km). I was tired, but very glad. Since the weather has been so miserable for much of the day, the volunteer inside the cathedral who gave me my certificate of completion was very surprised that I had just that moment finished the last stage.

After this I still had one more stop on my list of Orkney sites, so I made my way to the bus station to head out to the Italian Chapel.

The Italian Chapel was built by Italian prisoners of war who were on this island just south of the mainland, put to work building the Churchill Barriers. They were permitted to use two Nissen huts and make themselves a church on the island. Several of the prisoners were artists and craftsmen and the result is this stunning chapel – with frescoes modeled after the image on a prayer card carried by one of the prisoners.

Even the lamps were constructed from beef tins.

The families of the builders still maintain close connections with Orkney.

But, I’d realised on my way to the Italian Chapel that I forgot my walking poles somewhere – hopefully at the cathedral, so I had to go back there. The volunteers had realised who they belonged to and set them aside for me. Then back on the bus for my last night at Foinhaven. The wind was blowing so strongly that I had a hard time walking the final 5 minutes from the bus stop to the house.

I spent some time in the garage with my best buddy, Jessie the cat.

Thus ends my adventure in Orkney (except for one last delicious breakfast in the morning, a scenic ride to Stromness for the ferry, and a very rough ferry crossing to the mainland.)

I will definitely be back. Orkney is absolutely wonderful and there’s so much more to see and do. Probably the biggest thing I will remember is the wonderful kind people I met.