21 October: Visiting The old man of Hoy

We had planned to take the ferry to the island of Hoy in the morning, but when we got to the ferry terminal in Stromness, it turned out the ferry only took foot passengers. We had to drive to the ferry terminal at Houton in order to take our car, but first we had a quick look around Stromness.

In Stromness we saw many signs of Norwegian influence, for example wooden houses, the road called 'Faravel' and a house called 'Hamar cottage'.

Something even more exotic were the palm trees in Stromness. I was surprised they could survive so far north, but this was something we observed in a number of gardens. Fascinating!

The hike to the Old man of Hoy

After a nice ferry-trip to Lyness on the island of Hoy, we drove to Rackwick to start our hike to the Old man of Hoy. And the Norwegian connections continued: Hoy means 'High Island' from the Old Norse 'Háey'.

The Old man of Hoy is a 137 metres high sea stack, which is probably less than 400 years old. On maps drawn between 1600 and 1750, the area appears as a headland with no sea stack.

The sea stack was first climbed in 1966 and is yearly climbed on average 20 -50 times. In 2008 three men base jumped from the stack. One of them died 11 days later during a jump in Switzerland.


The hike took us past a few small farms with lots of sheep, before we reached a plateu which we followed along the cliffs edge for a little while before cutting across to the Old man himself. The wind was mild and we enjoyed hiking in the sunny weather.  No chance we would want to climb the stack though, and even less base jump from the top of it!

Craa Nest Museum in Rackwick

When we returned from our walk to the Old man of Hoy, we took a quick look at the Craa Nest Museum in Rackwick. The museum is housed in the oldest building in Rackwick, which is a traditional croft and steading, dating from the early 18th century. The building was last occupied in 1940 and has retained its original features, such as the kiln, open fireplace and flag floors. It shows how people lived a few hundred years ago.

The house is built from beach stones and has a typical flagstone roof, which is thatched with straw ropes. Inside there are box beds, a dresser and the typical utensils that would have been used long ago.

On our way back to the ferry, we drove past the Dwarfie Stane, a chambered tomb carved out of a 8,5 metres long block of red sandstone. It is thought to date back to 3000BC and it features some interesting Victorian graffiti including Latin and Persian lettering. Unfortunately we did not have the time to go take a closer look - we had to make it to the last ferry of the day or be left on the island until the next day.