Skara Brae is the oldest house you will ever walk past on a motorbike, or at least the oldest complete set of them. On the Bay of Skaill, on the west coast of Orkney's Mainland, a group of Neolithic stone houses lies half buried in the grassy dunes, built roughly five thousand years ago and lived in for several centuries. A great storm in the winter of 1850 stripped the turf from a mound and exposed the walls, and what was uncovered astonished everyone: stone beds, stone dressers, hearths, and cupboards still in their original places, because the settlers had built with slabs rather than timber, and there was no timber to rot. The site forms part of the Heart of Neolithic Orkney, along with the Ring of Brodgar and the Standing Stones of Stenness a few miles away.
Orkney as a whole is a gift to riders who like open space. The islands are low and green, with a coastline of red sandstone cliffs, and there are almost no trees to break the wind, which comes in from the Atlantic with very little to stop it. The roads are narrow, mostly well surfaced and quiet, with long straights and gentle curves, passing places on the minor lanes, and sheep and cattle that regard the tarmac as theirs. Traffic is light except around the main sights in summer, when coaches and campervans arrive in pulses. Be ready for sudden showers, strong crosswinds on exposed stretches, and sea mist, which can arrive within minutes in summer.
Stromness, the nearest town, about ten kilometres away, is a handsome grey-stone port with a flagstoned main street, a harbour full of small boats, and the ferry terminal for Scrabster on the Scottish mainland. It has a few shops, cafés, a museum and fuel, though with fewer than two thousand people it is not a place with many choices, and Kirkwall, the main town, is the better stop for supermarkets and a wider range of services.
Orkney's other pleasures are everywhere: the fudge and cheese, the beer, the seafood, the smell of seaweed on the wind and the calls of oystercatchers and curlews in the fields. Remember that the visitor centre and the site have set opening hours and charge entry, and in the middle of summer the car park can be busy.
Come in late afternoon, when the day trippers have gone, and the sand and sky go the colour of old pewter.