Wideford Hill

It was sunny and 13°C today. I was supposed to be working on my club newsletter, but it was sunny and 13°C. So Scout and I walked Wideford Hill (notice I don’t say walked up the hill – we drove 2/3 of the way up and parked – I haven’t changed all that much).

Wideford Hill isn’t the highest hill in Orkney, but it is the one overlooking the town of Kirkwall and I see it from my kitchen window every day. There’s a cairn, so I thought we would walk around the hill to check that out. We got to the sign describing Wideford Cairn – I thought I already knew what a cairn was. Normally here in Scotland they’re a rough pile of stones that has been erected as a marker or landmark of some sort – kind of a Scottish version of an inuksuk, but without the personality. But it seems this cairn is a series of Neolithic chambers, reached by climbing down a ladder (they advise bringing a flashlight). I didn’t really see myself descending solo into a 4,000 year old tomb, but it was a point to aim at for our walk.

I saw the cairn, but only from a distance, because Scout was struggling. Not physically; it’s not steep and the path mostly just circumscribes the top third of the hill. But she seemed a little freaked out. She was fine when we were walking away from the views, and she was even okay when there was pasture below in front of us. But when the view widened out, she stopped sniffing the ground and just stopped. Every 10 seconds or so. It was making moving forward very difficult. At first I thought she’d seen movement in the heather (maybe a hare or a grouse?), but then I realized she froze each time a car went by on the roads miles below us. I think the movement of the cars caught her eye, which caused her to look down on the houses, cars, and trucks below us, and maybe she couldn’t figure out what she was seeing?

She’s watching that red truck.

Anyway, it meant we weren’t so much hiking as playing statues 180 metres up in the air, so we turned back. And just like that, with the view of Finstown behind us, she was fine. We’ll try again sometime, maybe from the other side, once it really warms up (you know, to maybe 18°?).

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