Shetland

 

Our first proper trip in 15 months, for all the obvious reasons, one we'd planned a good while back and indeed booked a long time back too.   It was big relief when everything lined-up in terms of regulations, travel restrictions, etc. 

So off to Shetland we went:

On landing we headed straight to the lower end of the mainland at Sumburgh Head, this is the lighthouse overlooking the cliffs:

Arctic and Great Skua soared amongst the terns, guillemots and puffins.  From Sumburgh we headed up via the Hoswick visitor centre (great little cafe) and on to Lerwick to catch the ferry across to Bressay where we were going to stay.  

From what the very friendly locals were saying it was the first warm, dry and not-too-windy day of the year.   A Common Tern perched looking for the smaller fish sheltering in the harbour waters:

Helen's homework paid off and we were in a comfortable, friendly and enjoyable hotel overlooking the ferry terminal and channel across to Lerwick.  The next day proved just as stunning, a consistent pattern for the bulk of our visit, as the ferry headed across to collect us:

We picked what looked like the best walk, avoiding high cliffs on Shetland, on Muckle Roe.  A 4 mile track led through the island guarded by small groups of garden gnomes (!):

The track leads to a natural inlet that once housed a thriving community.   Like a lot of the outer islands we've visited there's a lot of deserted and tumble-down buildings, often of several generations:

The whole area was stunning, as was the weather:

A young seal was pulled out to bask and watched us curiously:

The walk back was equally breathtaking although i found the cliffs too much so we headed inland, clambering up 4 hills and scrambling down again to get back to the car:

We visited a number of other spots while we were on the mainland, this was taken on St Ninians Isle:

This was just south of Papil on West Burra:

All around mainland we were buzzed by the unique Shetland Bumblebee:

After five wonderful days, exploring, being out and about and using the camera again it was time to head North.  We transited via Yell to Unst, finding a wonderful beach at Skaw:

Weirdly this beach had 4G access (it turns out anywhere where a 'blue light' worker lives has this).  This proved very useful when we checked into the hotel at Baltasound as for a number of reasons it became very clear we didn't want to spend any more time than we had to there.  

At this point things got a bit farcical with phantom hotel room bookings, two days of cancelled flights and friends imminent at home but it all worked out in the end and was great both to be exploring again and to have visited Shetland.