North-west Coast, Westray

Walk along the fine coast from Inga Ness to the RSPB reserve and Stephenson lighthouse at Noup Head, in 17km.

This is wild, remote landscape where you won't meet a track the whole way and will only see the odd farm in the distance.

The scenery is superb throughout: cliffs, stacks, geos, arches, caves, sandstone shelves and pavements, with long views up the coast and back, with Rousay in the distance. Seabirds galore, of course, as Noup Head is the biggest of all Orkney's colonies: as well as puffins, skua, guillemots and kittiwakes in season, you should see gannets in action and terns (our specialist believed arctic) which hovered over us squawking when we strayed too near their nests. You are very likely to see seals near the head, and might see dolphins and porpoise.

Once in the reserve, you are walking on delightfully cropped grass and short clifftop growth. Near Noup Head there is an extraordinary milky way sweep of scattered fragments of dismembered crab shells, some way inland.

Getting back to your car can require ingenuity. See the Cicerone guide for details.

An alternative, which Walkopedia did, is a circuit starting at Backarass Farm near the start of the RSPB reserve, dropping the 1/2 km to the coastal path, walking up to Noup head and then back on a track on the north flank of the promontory. 7km ish, and it took us 2.5 hours. We thought we would be improvising the drop-down at the start, but this has been turned into a formal footpath, and you can park easily near the farm.

These walks deserve to be ranked with Britain's famous coastal paths.

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For more information and photos, including detailed practical information and some warnings, see our Orkneys walk page.