News from Nowhere

durham_rambler's special treat for this holiday was to take the world's shortest scheduled air flight, from Westray to Papa Westray, and this morning we did just that. timed it at 1 minute 57 seconds, but that includes take off and landing: we were in the air for rather less than that.

Also taking the Islander were a couple from Cumbria, who had booked a guide to show them round the island, the post lady, who was travelling on to Kirkwall with the mail, and a crew from BBC Radio Scotland, recording for a programme called Out of Doors: four of them (the presenter, sound recorder, researcher and I don't know what the other one did - and was mildly surprised that the project justified so large a team). The flight was fine: a brief view of clear blue water and tiny white birds far below, and then green turf and a miniature shadow of an aeroplane growing larger until we meet it and we're down. The radio presenter, who had been sitting up front next to Colin the pilot, thanked him and said something immensely enthusiastic about how 'we have the best job ever and even so this is the best thing I've done in ages...' and I thought: really? it was very nice, but have you never taken the flight between North Ronaldsay and Kirkwall? - and then I realised that of course he was speaking on microphone, and this was for the benefit of the radio audience. I don't think he was faking it, exactly: but while it may have been genuine, I don't think it was entirely natural.

More or less adjacent to the airfield is Holland Farm, which must be the grandest farm and house on the island, not to mention its smart red paintwork and the Maes Howe dragon painted on what is surely the slurry container (still on jury-rigged wifi, so I can't post photos). It also has a tiny museum, in one of the outbuildings, which is worth dropping in to. And it's where the footpath leads off to the Knap of Howar, a double stone structure which is usually described as " the earliest known dwellings in Orkney - and the oldest standing buildings in northern Europe." Also a delightful location whose doors now open onto blue sea and a view back to Westray, in a turf bank cushioned with pink thrift. Our fellow travellers were there, with their guide, whose puffin badge durham_rambler identified as an actual Puffin Club badge: we greeted each other as fellow members, though we did not use the password and response (Sniffup / Spotera).

Back to the road, and we called in at Beltane House, the hostel where you can, for a donation, use the kitchen to make yourself a cafetiere of coffee, and location of the shop where you can buy provisions for your picnic. A little further on was the post office, where the postmaster (wearing an Icelandic style jumper in the rainbow colours of the wools on sale) recognised durham_rambler's Fair Isle Bird Observatory sweatshirt, and was jealous. Which led to a friendly but ultimately depressing conversation, about Tim Cleeves and corncrakes (there are none on Papay this year).

This brought us down to the sea on the other side of the island, and we followed the coastal path round: wonderful sea views, families of ducks paddling out in the seaweed (little fluffy ducklings learning to plunge), fulmars nesting in the footing of drystone walls (including one right under a stile which fortunately we hadn't tried to use because there was a convenient gap in the wall). And just at the point where I was beginning to think that my ankle would not put up with much more of this awkward hopping from stone to stone and narrow one-foot-directly-in-front-of-the-other business, the going smoothed out into a fine turf path, and then delivered us onto a stony track to the jetty at the Bay of Moclett.

The beautiful beach here was one of the things I had remembered from our previous visit to Papay, and I would have loved to walk on the white sands. But we had a plane to catch, and comfortably enough time to catch it, but not more than that. So we walked the long haul up the road, admiring the way the distances were vanishing into the haze - and gradually realising that this mist was rather more than the ambient island haar. Weary but triumphant, we tumbled into the airport waiting room, and almost as soon as we did, durham_rambler's phone woke up and delivered him a message from Loganair that the plane was cancelled, and we should take the ferry. A kind lady who works at the airport, and who happened to be driving past on the way to her singing group, gave us a lift back the way we had come, to the ferry, and that's how we came back to Westray (it cost £4.20, for the two of us). The ferry, the Golden Mariana, looked very like my memories of the one we took on our first trip to Papa Westray in 1992, and since she was launched in 1973, probably is. (Wikipedia has a good story about the launch.)