Orkney, it's my 'Ba

St Magnus Cathedral

Winner of the 2015 New Year 'Ba game

Any visit to Orkney is always an enlightening experience and I was hopeful of perhaps catching the northern lights. I have been fortunate to make half a dozen business trips since my first visit in 1993 and on a couple of occasions I have taken some holidays to travel around the islands. My reading for the last couple of days has been the Italian Chapel, the story of the bond of friendship between the Italian prisoner's of war and the island folk that endures through a chapel in refurbished Nissen huts erected and decorated by Italian craftsmen. It reminded me of the common courtesy and egalitarianism that underpins the rich community life on the islands.

The flight from Edinburgh was in one of the 14 Loganair Saab 340 turbo prop planes that serve the Scottish islands. Despite the age of the planes, now more than 20 years old, the pilots and stewards always make you feel secure, despite the often turbulent conditions. The pilots regard the planes as machines to practise their skills and the routes they fly have the worst weather in Britain. The New Zealand captain on my flight had a voice that could have been a 1950's BBC announcer, it oozed reassurance and trust. The steward asked me to take the emergency door seat next to her and we were able to chat throughout the flight, I gained the impression that Loganair was a good employer that inspired loyalty from its aircrews. With a strong tailwind we arrived 15 minutes ahead of schedule, I walked off the plane to the taxi rank and reached my B&B before the estimated landing time.

I immediately dumped my bag and sauntered past the magnificent St Magnus cathedral and down to the harbour area to find somewhere serving fresh fish. Helgi's is a fine bar next to the Kirkwall Hotel and it served day fresh haddock. By chance the draft beer was Scapa, which I had first encountered at the Ayrshire Real Ale festival last year and voted for as my favourite beer. I had assumed that Highland brewing company was Inverness based but it is a local Orkney brewery. Scapa is brewed with German hops and its marketing tag line is 'goes down better than the German Fleet'.

I met an economic consultant whom I had heard of and we had another couple of rounds of beer whilst discussing the importance of localism in driving successful economies and sharing views about the extreme centralisation of public services by the Scottish Government. From planning decisions, ring fenced budgets, nhs, police, further education to scottish enterprise, it has been garnering control from the local level.The very opposite of what Donald Dewar had intended at the onset of the Scottish Parliament. His vision had been devolving not just from Westminster to Holyrood but to the most local level possible. The bar had filled for what appeared to be a ladies quiz night so we had to curtail our discussions and walk back through the empty narrow streets that are the location for the annual 'Ba game between the men of Kirkwall. They are divided into uppies and doonies, originally this referred to where they were born, but nowadays it is more often where they or their families live.

My B&B was run by the winner of the Kirkwall 'Ba game at the New Year, he was chosen by the acclaim of his team as the outstanding player. He showed me the trophy, a 'Ba that is about the size of a football but three times as heavy. Not that much throwing takes place, the game is 5 hours of packing down along the narrow streets between the cathedral and the harbour. When the doonies win, as they did on this occasion, the game requires the 'Ba to be thrown into the sea at the harbour. The winner usually follows. Kirkwall can be a wild place.

After a full day's work during which I learnt more about the state of Orkney than government inspectors could ever do in a month, I was given a lift to the airport. I spent the next three hours waiting for the final flight, the aircraft was being repaired in Edinburgh. It is not the first time I have been delayed by repairs to the aircraft  on trips to Orkney and Shetland. As we finally landed at Edinburgh and emerged from the vast and ugly maze that Edinburgh airport has become, a fellow passenger explained that he had been on the same plane in the morning and there had been a terrible smell from the engine, I was pleased that I heard this at the end of the flight.

Then just the crazy walk from airport building to the shuttle bus, passing the original bus stops, through the taxi ranks and multi story car parks to reach the new bus terminal. We had walked a good kilometre from alighting the aircraft.  I expressed my concern about the length of the walk for disabled/elderly folk to the bus driver. He totally agreed saying that it was the decision of airport management so that shuttle buses did not get any closer to the terminal than the Edinburgh trams or cars in the expensive car park. The bus waited a while and another fellow passenger eventually puffed his way onto the bus, he had been sitting across from me on the plane.  He explained that he had Parkinson's and was now finding Edinburgh airport a nightmare and major barrier to his work trips.  The ill conceived transport interchanges, circuitous routes to the gates and the time consuming problems in its new security hall have converted Edinburgh from a very good regional airport to a botched attempt at becoming an international airport.

St Magnus

Beinn Chuirn

Beinn Chuirn from the Cononish track

Looking east to Ben More and Stob Binnein

Beinn Oss from Beinn Chuirn

The ascent of Beinn Chuirn

Summit view - Hills of the North, Rejoice

Me and my shadow on the descent ridge

Cononish river

Ben Lui and Beinn Chuirn across the Cononish as the clouds spill in

Ben Lui

Friday, 6 February 2015
Distance: 15 kilometres
Ascent:    740 metres
Time:      4hours 35 minutes

Beinn Chuirn      880 m       2hrs 39mins

At last a start on the hills in 2015 and what a day. After a couple of weeks struggling to walk let alone run after twisting my back, I had managed a couple of runs and felt I was on the mend. The high pressure had held all week and the wind and clouds from the earlier part of the week had been seen off. it was February at its very best.  Beinn Chuirn was my nearest remaining corbett, the hill that hosts the Tyndrum gold mine. It is a good 5 kilometre walk in along the track to Connonish and from here a path runs to the foot of Ben Lui. Beinn Chuirn is the large mass to the north with a 500 metre drop between the two hills. It has eluded me on the five occasions when I had completed the 4 munros in the Ben Lui group. I always had an excuse for not continuing to Beinn Chuirn; short winter days, leading a Water Aid group, walking with friends or just couldn't be bothered. I had put it on hold it as a hill for a lazy day; well that was certainly not the case today.

Although I made a late start it was still -2.5°C as I turned into the car park that resembled a skating rink  at Dalrigh just before Tyndrum. I had been warned that it was mighty cold on the summits so I wore an extra layer in addition to my normal winter clothing of a merino base layer and wool pullover beneath a soft-shell jacket. My crampons and ice axe were packed in expectation that they would be necessary. As always when leaving Dalrigh I had to consult the map to find the right track but once past the church house I began to stride out.

The track was covered in a layer of hard frozen snow that had been polished by vehicle tracks. My scarpa boots seemed to give a reasonable grip and I made the 5 kilometres to Cononish in an hour and then continued towards Ben Lui for another kilometre before leaving the track to make a rising traverse of the southern slopes of Beinn Chuirn. It had seemed the obvious line to take but the deep soft snow made it an arduous ascent. Each step was a venture into the next potential snow hole. After just 100 metres of ascent, I decided to have an early snack, the air was still and a few nuts and a tangerine followed by a coffee provide some sustenance. I retrieved my walking pole from the rucksack to help progress through the snow and it made all the difference.

The slopes were still steep but the more exposed slopes had been cleared of snow by the wind and I used these ramps to reach the shoulder of the hill at 600 metres. The snow here was hard and crusty and it provided easy going to cross the frozen burn and then begin the last 250 metres of climb to the summit. The views to Ben Lui were directly into the sun but Ben More and Stob Binnein provided a profile of snow blasted mountains to the east and the Breadalbane hills to the north looked resplendent basking in the early afternoon sun. It was still tiring although I was walking at a decent pace now that the soft snow had been left behind. Beinn Chuirn is a high corbett at 880 metres and it certainly seemed so as I toiled up the slopes.

It was just after 2pm when I reached the summit, half an hour later than I had hoped but the air was still and it was no discomfort to take a seat and admire the amazing vistas in all directions. The cloud was gathering at a lower level to the south west but everywhere else was a winter wonderland. I had grabbed an old pair of sunglasses from the car and they were needed to disperse the glare from the snow. I finished the flask of coffee, nibbled more nuts and began the descent.

What had taken well almost an hour and a half to ascend was descended in less than half that time, despite stopping for photos. I looked for the long snow sections to skate down and on only on a couple of occasions did I fall into snow holes. Back on the path above Cononish, the snow had begun to freeze hard as the sun dipped behind Ben Lui. Clouds began to spill into the valley floor, which was much colder than the hills that were still bathed in late afternoon sunshine.

I charged through Cononish using my walking pole to prevent any slips on the lethal icy sections caused by vehicles. The river Cononish at the side of the track had an icy blue tinge and there was no-one panning for gold. I became clammy as the heat generated from the effort of walking was chilled by the falling temperature. It was not the sort of day to pause.  The walk out from Cononish took under an hour and, as I sat changing my boots at the rear of the car, a police car circled the car park checking for any vandalism or break ins. My car had been broken into not far from here six years ago on another February day. I was home by 5pm convinced not for the first time that February is the best month of the year to walk in the hills on these freezing days of high pressure.