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Cruise Bonanza

A cruise ship landed in Kirkwall this morning, releasing upwards of 4,000 tourists onto the town. The cruise ship dock is right next to my workplace, so I toddled over and took some photos.

The ship dwarfs the town: it’s insane to think that the whole population of the city of Kirkwall could just about fit on this one floating behemoth.

An artificial umbilical connects the cruise ship to our industrial park

As is typical I lay down in the grass and tried to get an aesthetically pleasing picture. I’m not sure it really worked, because I actually find the idea of cruise ships incredibly depressing. Who would want to pay a huge amount of money to live on a floating petri dish for a month?

The nose of the ship, with its little red escort.

Actually, the grass is more interesting than the ship.

The worst part about cruise ships, though, is that you’re surrounded by people who unironically enjoy cruise ships. In other words, Floridians. Brrrr.

Give way for the Cruise Orkney bus, y’all.

Visitors pass directly through the innovation campus. It was odd looking out through the window at various times during the day and seeing actual human beings. Normally there would just be cows.

The massive wind turbine behid the welcome sign is good foreshadowing, honestly.

A bus full of cruise shippies coming right past one of Orbital’s workshops.

Speaking of wind turbines, as I was walking around taking photos of the cruise ship like some brain-addled Miamiite, I noticed a small wind turbine farm across the bay.

Pretty!

I would love to get a telephoto lens. There’s so many things on other islands (wind turbines, that is) and around Kirkwall (cows, that is) that I would love to get close-up photos of from very far away.

Cows

If you’re beginning to sense a theme among these posts, good.

I am obsessed.

No, really. I stayed late at work until I was too hungry to carry on, but when I left, instead of taking me in the rational direction towards food and comfort, my feet inexorably brought me towards the cows. I wanted to know how my little friends were doing!

Sleepy, it seems.

Very sleepy.

So, so sleepy.

Not much action going on among the cows, I figured. However, this was a good opportunity to get all three industries of Kirkwall together in a single photo.

Cows, wind, and tourism.

At this point the cows noticed me again.

‘You again?’

It was over in seconds. These guys are really curious.

Me again and this again.

All my old friends were there:

Brown cow, as reclusive as ever

464, who I think likes me

Who could forget 2814?

2814 was, like, actually a little bit unhinged today. Here’s 464 gently sniffing my hand and OH WOULD YOU LOOK WHO WANTS TO SEE WHAT’S HAPPENING.

2814 does.

I let her see, of course.

The boldness of these cows never ceases to amaze me. That, and the fact that they’re so silent. The soundtrack to the life of these cows is nothing but the quiet rustling of the wind in the grass, a nose brushing against the ground, the heave as a one-ton meat animal shifts its weight. I was caught completely off-guard when one of them hacked up a wad of phlegm.

They sound like old men and they’ve got the whiskers to boot.

Words

I should really learn how to sex some of these animals, because I’ve been indiscriminately referring to them as cows, but “cow” is actually a precise technical term of art. I’m pretty sure that the correct word would be steers, that is castrated male cows, because they really like riding each other. Also, cows ought to be much more refined than these guys. I like the word “cow”, though, and I think it’s more clear for my meaning than the definitely-correct term “bovine”, so you’ll just have to put up with my slight technical inaccuracy. I’m sorry to all the farmers and pedants and particularly sorry to any pedantic farmers.

There are also some of these creatures, but I’m not even going to get into that.

Friends

2814 has some friends with white muzzles.

464 followed me all the way across the field, keeping direct pace, walking as I walked.

It was tough saying goodbye.

You may be wondering what all these bovines are doing so close to the city. I found out the reason today:

Economics. (This one is actually a theme park!)

Far be it from me to interfere with the farming system that generates billions for the island each year, but I don’t want to think about my cow friends being sold off. :(

Closing pictures

I got a nice picture of the wind turbine on my walk home. Honestly the only reason that I want to include this one is because I spent literally ages taking pictures trying to capture the blades in the right position.

Looking like a goddamn wind turbine advertisement

Some people were out sailing small boats around a regatta set up. I liked their pink sail.

I used to do this.

And I saw a rabbit!!!!

Oryctolagus cuniculus

I think that I’ve about exhausted my creativity for what I can talk about on the walk between Orbital and Broadsands. Which is unfortunate, because I’m going to do it at minimum about 5 more times before I move into my more permanent accommodation for the summer. Because of the cows, there’s only one walking route that’s really feasible to take between home and work, and I’m not sure that there’s all that much more that I can say about it.

However, tomorrow I’m hoping to go into the main part of town again to try to get to Bruce’s convenience stores. And there’s a part of Victoria street that I haven’t been down yet. I’ll try to get to work early and leave on time for that. And later in the summer, I can get pictures of the Pickaquoy recreation centre (“Picky”, to the locals) and go on some hikes. I’m excited!

Until next time,

Beef out.

Thinking about (\pi_ij)