There’s a saying about Orkney that you only have to scratch the surface to find signs of previous lives. It is an archaeologist’s mecca. This morning I decide to take a walk to a chambered cairn (a communal tomb dating back to 3000 BC) set on a peninsula to the south of the island.

Once the boys are at school I drive south then turn onto a pot-holed track. Most journeys on this island involve a pot-holed track at some point. My immediate view is of a small sea inlet – the “Peedie Sea” as it is called here – sheltered by long limbs of land. The track runs parallel to the shoreline where oystercatcher, redshank and dunlin search and probe for food. Wigeon duck and dive out in the bay.

A right fork in the track leads to the shore. At low tide one can drive across the sands, but this morning the tide is high and the route off limits so I stick to the high road. With the track still hugging the edge of the Peedie Sea on my right, the land to my left drops away to reveal a sweep of sand edging the ice-blue ocean. The track ends at the further end of this isthmus and it is time to park and walk.

I can see my destination immediately. The cairn has been prominently placed on the eastern edge of this long spit of land. The dogs (we now have a second puppy – a collie/spaniel mixture that I couldn’t resist and which the boys have bizarrely named HotDog) and I set off along the coastal path. A freezing northerly wind urges us on and I am already aware of the struggle we will have walking back. As we head south of the sandy bay I remember bringing the boys here last summer. We had set off to visit the cairn then, but the heat of the day and the lure of the beach overcame us and we headed down for a swim instead. Today that decision is hard to comprehend.

Turnstone flit among the rocks and seaweed. The path deteriorates into a cattle-poached quagmire. Sleet pounds at my back. As the tomb looms ahead a feeling of disorientation engulfs me. I find it hard to contemplate a time span of 5000 years since this structure was built. 

The dogs have no intention of entering the low (less than three foot), dark passage and whine desperately at me as I crawl along its thirty foot length to the inner chamber. I squat on the earth floor and peer in to the six side chambers. Bones of at least 10 adults and five children were found in this tomb, along with animal bones, bone and stone tools and pottery fragments. I feel calm and at ease in here, not spooked as I thought I might. A sense of peace hangs in the still, quiet air. I think this would be a rather beautiful place to be laid to rest.

As I emerge from the tunnel a shrill noise sends my heart leaping. It’s my mobile phone bringing me back to the 21^st century with an ugly jolt. We head for home, the wind driving hail mercilessly into our faces. I tuck HotDog inside my jacket – she’s a tired wee pup.