West to Westray

Having visited the sights of Rousay we decided to head north and west to the island of Westray.

After consulting the pilot book to decipher the devious Orkney tidal flows, we charted our way in fair weather through the complex pattern of Orkney's northern islands to the small marina at Pierowall on Westray.


Pierowall Harbour on Westray

Westray Marina Inside Pierowall Harbour

The marina is pretty small and had only just re-opened after the pontoons had been replaced.  In fact the whole harbour was in the process of being upgraded and work was still underway by teams of builders who were pouring concrete and running new power cables.  Large diggers and a concrete lorry were constantly dashing along the quaysides and apart from the noise, there was also a quantity of dust in the air that started to collect on our decks.

The marina pontoons were currently without power or water and there was only one shower for all the boats.  The work was behind time and they were rather apologetic about this.  As we needed to refill our water, we enlisted Doug to do a few runs to the builder's tap with our jerry cans in a marina trolley.  I'm sure he needed the exercise!

Westray is a lovely island but did have the feel of being on the edge of civilisation compared with our past Orkney experiences.  Food could be bought from two rudimentary general stores, clothes could be washed by agreement with a local guest house and the internet signal was weak.

We did a lot of walking between the harbour and the town of Pierowall, that was a mile away, on our errands ashore!

The Long Shore Road at Pierowall

One of the general stores had a little café behind it and we were lucky to be able to go to one of their buffet nights that are held twice a month.  This was a good chance to meet some of the very friendly locals.

We visited the 16th century Noltland Castle, a grim fortress of a dwelling that was built by Gilbert Balfour, who was Master of the Royal Household of Mary Queen of Scots.  This overlooks Pierowall and commands views out to sea to the north and east.

Noltland Castle

The Castle Kitchen on the Ground Floor

The castle walls and inner staircase are peppered with holes for shooting through.  Maybe the Balfours were expecting trouble!

Comments

  1. Doug Hinge29 July 2018 at 23:35

    Gilbert Balfour, having been implicated in more than one murder, was indeed expecting trouble. He eventually fled to Sweden. Here he plotted more nasty deeds, until the Swedish king decided to stop his unpleasant behaviour by having his head cut off, in 1576.

    ReplyDelete

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