A long-held wish was to see the standing circles of Brodgar, a 5000-year-old ring of standing circles on the Isle of Orkney, which lies north of Scotland in the North Sea.

There are more than one stone circle and standing stone locations around Scotland but since the first stone circles I heard about (outside of Stone Henge) were those on Orkney, it was those stone circles I must see, no other would do!

It didn’t take long to discover that travel in Scotland during peak travel season doesn’t allow much scope for spontaneity.

Accommodation is booked well in advance and vacancies would disappear before your eyes.

To make matters worse, all of Europe in summer of 2022 was gripped by Covid induced staff shortages and post-lockdown airline capacity shortages, so a lot of Britons decided to holiday at home.

Oh, and the Edinburgh fringe festival was also about to kick off about the time I needed to return to Edinburgh to get a connecting flight to Italy.

Bridge over the River Ness

Banks of the River Ness

Lock near Loch Ness

Terrace in Inverness

So, by the time I decided to go to Orkney on my already naively spontaneous Scottish diversion, I was left without any illusions about the need to do more than two or three-day-ahead planning. That might have worked earlier in the season but not now, and not here.

Standing outside a fully booked hostel on a rainy Scottish evening in some far-flung Scottish town with nowhere to sleep was a consequence of poor planning I had witnessed, and did not want to replicate!

Thurso is such a far-flung town, being on the far north coast of mainland Scotland. It has an Orkney ferry service leaving from a few kilometres out of town and a train station. There are other tour operations from other towns like Aberdeen, but a do-it-yourself adventure is always my preference.

Thurso it was.

Having worked my way from Edinburgh to Inverness, the final push seemed fairly straightforward:

Book accommodation in Thurso
Catch the Inverness to Thurso train
Catch a ferry to Orkney
See the stone circles
Revel in my mission accomplishment
Box. Ticked. You legend!

The route from Inverness to Thurso runs along the northeast coast, literally only metres from the beaches at times.

At roughly 4 hours, there’s plenty of time to stare out the window and wonder if it’s even worth coming this far or even leaving Inverness; a beautiful Scottish town along the banks of the rapidly flowing River Ness.

Thurso has that sleepy and deserted this-was-a-place-back-in-the-day-but-now-seagulls-outnumber-humans feel.

In this part of the world ‘back in the day’ could mean anything from the Norse in the 1200’s to the 1800’s when it served as more of a fishing town. It was the latter back-in-the-day that I was reminded of.

Remnants of old fishing boats decorate the docks and lawns of nearby houses to let you know it was once a fully-fledged fishing village.

Today, only a few boats seem remotely functional, with only the presence of nets and traps suggesting that Geordie-Boy might actually get its hull wet.

All in all, it was fair to say that outside of the ferry to Orkney, Thurso didn’t offer much to justify a 4-hour train ride.

The ferry itself left from Scrabster, which is a couple of kilometres outside of town.

The plan was made, rise in the morning, walk with camera pack to Scrabster and get the 8:45am ferry to Orkney and return on the 16:45 service, the last of the day.

But circumstance had other plans. That far north, the sun doesn’t set until very late. Golden hour stretches for a seeming eternity.

Northern Scotland summer evening. Enchanting and alluring.

Enchanted by the soft light and long shadows of a northern Scotland sunset, I wandered later into the night than I should have.

The longer light also made it harder to sleep. I was bedevilled by body-weariness but mind-alertness, and I didn’t fall asleep quickly.

Come morning it all hit home, I rose late.

“All good, I can still make it!” was quickly followed by “oh shit, damn you Google Maps!” How did 10 minutes get added to my walk between yesterday and today!?!

Like watching your ferry leave without you.

Quick calculations of bus times offered little hope. I had to leg it, fast.

With an aching Achilles tendon (a consequence of 3 months walking without much time for recovery) I started run-walking (or is it walk-running?) the 3 km’s to Scrabster ferry port with my camera bag and 6kg of equipment bouncing unhelpfully.

It started to drizzle and then rain. Of course.

I was now on the main road to the port, so I extended the hitcher hikers finger in hope. It worked, I jumped in the drivers van next to a black and white border collie and thanked my ride profusely for picking me up.

As we came round into port, it was 8:30am and the ferry was warming up ready to go, the rear ramp still down for vehicles to embark.

In Oban, on the west coast, when I needed a ferry to Mull, I fronted up and bought a ticket. To get to Kerrera from Oban you walk up, buy a ticket from the Glaswegian transplant and get on the ferry.

Why would I think it would be any different here!? It was.

“Did you book a ticket?” I was asked when I presented myself at the ticket window.

“Um, do I need to, can’t I just buy one now?”

“You need to book” came the deadpan reply.

“Well, can I buy one now? I’m here and so is the ferry.”

“No, it’s too late. You have to book and be here half an hour before departure” came the utterly indifferent reply, clearly ignorant of my 4-hour train ride, 3km morning run-walk in the rain, hitch hike, and fixed this-is-my-only-chance schedule.

“Are you sure, the ferry is just there, the ramp is still down for cars…” I pleaded, doing my level best to contain my exasperation.

Disembarked passengers waiting in the ferry terminal for their connecting bus to town looked on without sympathy or amusement.

She called someone to ask if I could get on the ferry in a half-hearted, going through the motions, appearing to give a shit, sort of way. It was a foregone conclusion.

Up came the vehicle ramp and I watched as the ferry departed at 8:35am, ten minutes ahead of schedule!!

Like some poor sod standing outside a fully booked hostel on a rainy Scottish summer evening with nowhere to go, I was standing at a ferry terminal on a rainy Scotland morning watching my ferry sail off.

“You can book the next ferry, it’s at 13:15.”

It took a millisecond of calculations for me to realise that was pointless.

There would simply not be enough time to get to Orkney, out to the stone circles and back at 16:45 for the last return ferry of the day. Well, 16:15 really, as I needed to be at port 30 minutes before departure.

“Well, there’s always tomorrow” she offered. There wasn’t. With my return journey and accommodation all booked there was no ‘tomorrow’ to try again. ‘Tomorrow’ was a return train to Edinburgh.

So that was that. The remainder of my Thurso ‘adventure’ was spent doing my washing at the only service station laundromat in town.

Four hours sitting on a train to get to an outreach Scottish seaside town just to wash my underwear.

The next day I woke up and travelled 8 hours back to Edinburgh, stone circles unseen.

There was no mission accomplishment here.

Box. Unticked. You pillock.

How To Fail In Scotland