Further - Explore Shetland
Jarlshof, St Ninian's Isle, Grind Da Navir, Ronas Hill, The Keen of Hamar, Hermaness
When in Shetland, think Viking, think Norway. From the 9th century there was Viking settlement in Shetland which was under Norwegian rule until the 14th century. The Shetland flag incorporates a design of the Nordic cross on the colours of the flag of Scotland. ‘ Our allegiance is with Norway, not Scotland’- overheard during the Scottish referendum of 2014.
At Scalloway on the west coast, exposed to Atlantic storms, is a slipway marking the point of departure for the Shetland bus. A Special Operations Executive organisation, behind enemy lines, part of the Resistance Movement linking occupied Norway to Shetland, to Britain during World War 11. Over two hundred voyages in winter storms and in darkness to Arctic Norway, in the guise of fishing boats.
Shetland and Norway are seafaring peoples, it’s in their geography, lingering in place names, in traditional boat design and the naming of each part of a boat. A seafaring people needs to know coastal landforms, the best beaches on which to land. Norse settlers gave precisely descriptive names to landscape features.
Ayre ridge of sand or gravel, a coastal spit or peninsula
Voe an inlet or narrow bay
Firth a narrow inlet of the sea
Wick a bay
Geo a narrow and deep cleft in the face of a cliff, where I look for black guillemot
Ness a headland
Skerry a small rocky islet or reef
Shoal a submerged area of sand or shingle
A Haaf, where fishermen brought their catch after deep-sea fishing
At Scalloway on the west coast, exposed to Atlantic storms, is a slipway marking the point of departure for the Shetland bus. A Special Operations Executive organisation, behind enemy lines, part of the Resistance Movement linking occupied Norway to Shetland, to Britain during World War 11. Over two hundred voyages in winter storms and in darkness to Arctic Norway, in the guise of fishing boats.
Shetland and Norway are seafaring peoples, it’s in their geography, lingering in place names, in traditional boat design and the naming of each part of a boat. A seafaring people needs to know coastal landforms, the best beaches on which to land. Norse settlers gave precisely descriptive names to landscape features.
Ayre ridge of sand or gravel, a coastal spit or peninsula
Voe an inlet or narrow bay
Firth a narrow inlet of the sea
Wick a bay
Geo a narrow and deep cleft in the face of a cliff, where I look for black guillemot
Ness a headland
Skerry a small rocky islet or reef
Shoal a submerged area of sand or shingle
A Haaf, where fishermen brought their catch after deep-sea fishing
Jarlshof, Sumburgh Head, Mainland Shetland. Prehistoric settlement more than 4,000 years old. Late Neolithic houses, Bronze Age village, Iron Age broch and wheelhouses, Norse longhouse, Medieval farmstead, 16th century laird’s house. The 16th century castle was claimed by Patrick Stewart,1569-1615, Earl of Orkney, self-styled Lord of Shetland, putative pirate. A ruin when Sir Walter Scott visited and gave it the name Jarlshof in his novel ‘The Pirate’. Earlier archaeology was buried under sand and unknown to Scott. Why choose to live here? Early peoples came upon this place, assessed environment – fresh water close to the resources of the sea, fertility to grow bere- that cereal discovered in the middens.
At Jarlshof, we could enter the cells of Iron Age houses – unlike Scara Brae. Stones thick with lichens, wall- cavities now home to nesting starlings who splash lintels with droppings. The moment we emerge from each stone cell we see tern and gannet diving beyond the stone buttress that holds the sea at bay. So close. An ancient place, now the residence of wildlife. Fulmar nest in the grassy mounds of the site and we hear of a family of the Shetland wren. A metal spiral stairway gives an overview of the site. Next, the more complex structures of Nordic houses.
At Jarlshof, we could enter the cells of Iron Age houses – unlike Scara Brae. Stones thick with lichens, wall- cavities now home to nesting starlings who splash lintels with droppings. The moment we emerge from each stone cell we see tern and gannet diving beyond the stone buttress that holds the sea at bay. So close. An ancient place, now the residence of wildlife. Fulmar nest in the grassy mounds of the site and we hear of a family of the Shetland wren. A metal spiral stairway gives an overview of the site. Next, the more complex structures of Nordic houses.
Friday 17 June 2011 St Ninian's Isle
At Bigton cosy chairs in a bus stop shelter- a Shetland theme.
St Ninian’s Isle A classic example of a sand tombolo, a depositional spit linking island to Mainland. A day of splendid light that coloured everything, our way of seeing too.
Maritime flora on the shingle of the tombolo and sanderling reflected in glossy sand. The tide washes colour and pattern along the curves of the tombolo. We explore clockwise. A lamb bleating piteously has become stranded down a geo near the water. A splendid blow hole at Inns Holm, rhythmic, we work out how water is forced into the mass of rock and belched out. All along the coast fulmar are nesting on cliffs and in brilliant light we study the tube on the upper part of their bill. Fulmar amidst sea campion, red campion, roseroot. At Long Berg we sit a long while contemplating waves as they come in off the Atlantic and break in green water. A family of wheatear, the bird of coastal landscapes. I love the sound-scape transitions sea to shore and back again as we skirt headlands - from fulmar, kittiwake and herring gull, to wheatear and skylark. Rafts of puffin on the water. Gannet and tern fishing. From amidst granite with lichens and thrift comes a strange call - bass and bovine. We search and search and find a tern, see it emitting this deep low call and creep closer to listen. Arctic tern flying, guillemot on the water. Ringed plover nest on shingle and are often found on the cliff top where my friend comes upon our first bird which he finds and I identify it from the black tip to its bill. A seal at Selchie Geo, how apt! Shetland is the place for skylarks and what a joy they are! In decline in mainland Britain, they are abundant in Shetland and in full song throughout the long, long hours of daylight. Midsummer day approaches. Great skua, bonxies, on the grass as we return from the trig point and the tombolo comes back into view. The curvature of the sand spit, the pattern made by breaking waves is beautiful. All day is glorious, with cloud low on the horizon. We paddle in a refreshingly cold sea and look for crabs amongst the rocks . Parked by a picnic table, we spread out our good fare and have a 3.00 pm picnic ( late becomes the norm for lunch) . We set up my scope and find red throated divers out in the bay, and tysties- the black guillemot.
Spiggie Beach is a sheltered, north-facing shell-sand bay backed by dunes and machair which cut off Spiggie Loch.
Drive up Ward of Scansburgh for views. Find a lapwing (peewit) with a fledgling in the grass.
At Bigton cosy chairs in a bus stop shelter- a Shetland theme.
St Ninian’s Isle A classic example of a sand tombolo, a depositional spit linking island to Mainland. A day of splendid light that coloured everything, our way of seeing too.
Maritime flora on the shingle of the tombolo and sanderling reflected in glossy sand. The tide washes colour and pattern along the curves of the tombolo. We explore clockwise. A lamb bleating piteously has become stranded down a geo near the water. A splendid blow hole at Inns Holm, rhythmic, we work out how water is forced into the mass of rock and belched out. All along the coast fulmar are nesting on cliffs and in brilliant light we study the tube on the upper part of their bill. Fulmar amidst sea campion, red campion, roseroot. At Long Berg we sit a long while contemplating waves as they come in off the Atlantic and break in green water. A family of wheatear, the bird of coastal landscapes. I love the sound-scape transitions sea to shore and back again as we skirt headlands - from fulmar, kittiwake and herring gull, to wheatear and skylark. Rafts of puffin on the water. Gannet and tern fishing. From amidst granite with lichens and thrift comes a strange call - bass and bovine. We search and search and find a tern, see it emitting this deep low call and creep closer to listen. Arctic tern flying, guillemot on the water. Ringed plover nest on shingle and are often found on the cliff top where my friend comes upon our first bird which he finds and I identify it from the black tip to its bill. A seal at Selchie Geo, how apt! Shetland is the place for skylarks and what a joy they are! In decline in mainland Britain, they are abundant in Shetland and in full song throughout the long, long hours of daylight. Midsummer day approaches. Great skua, bonxies, on the grass as we return from the trig point and the tombolo comes back into view. The curvature of the sand spit, the pattern made by breaking waves is beautiful. All day is glorious, with cloud low on the horizon. We paddle in a refreshingly cold sea and look for crabs amongst the rocks . Parked by a picnic table, we spread out our good fare and have a 3.00 pm picnic ( late becomes the norm for lunch) . We set up my scope and find red throated divers out in the bay, and tysties- the black guillemot.
Spiggie Beach is a sheltered, north-facing shell-sand bay backed by dunes and machair which cut off Spiggie Loch.
Drive up Ward of Scansburgh for views. Find a lapwing (peewit) with a fledgling in the grass.
Saturday 18 June. to Nye Swarthoul, near Hillswick, Northmavine, NW Shetland.
To Lerwick, to visit the broch at Climilinin once surrounded by water, now orchids bloom and a causeway takes us there. Reflections of Lerwick in the water.
Tingwall, a Viking meeting place, an idyll. One of many. Hot sun. A fisherman in a rowing boat, another in thigh waders, silent and still. Terns fly low over the water of the loch, taking aquatic insects, so common terns. By a buttercup pasture a farmer is making haylage, his tractor followed by gulls. There are yellow iris, marsh marigold, bogbean and orchids- magenta orchids. The soundscape is tern calling, always, and curlew.
Mavis Grind (the gate of the narrow isthmus) a narrow neck of land used to haul boats overland to avoid the longer journey around the north mainland.
Approaching Mavis Grind, we pass a lochan where a couple are photographing a red throated diver on a nest and we have splendid views, the light glows off its throat. Shetland is the stronghold of the red-throated diver, or red-throated loon, with populations on Orkney and the Outer Hebrides. They breed on fresh water lochs and lochans, usually close to the water’s edge- as this bird and the one on the Loch of Funzie, Fetlar. The rufous neck patch is dark and can look black at a distance, so its pale grey throat and plain upperparts are the best long-range markers. Its bill is up-tilted, often pointing slightly upwards - a distinctive feature. It’s an offence to photograph a diver on the nest without a licence- but I wonder how many visitors know that. I didn’t in 2011.
A landscape of abandoned crofts en route, circles, cells of stone walls being taken back into the earth whence they came. Earlier generations made less impact and more recently abandoned farmsteads have clutter of vehicles and metal implements. The historic landscapes of The Clearances, picking out patterns of agriculture and earlier land use. A theme that evolves during our visit.
We spend some time at Lerwick museum in these first days- rain and low cloud so far- an opportunity to focus on geology, habitation through the ages (archaeology) and culture. How they make use of everything! Stone houses, quern stones, artefacts of stone and bone- flints, cooking pots. A culture defined by stone and bone, of course- the Stone Age- a sustainable, low-impact lifestyle. Surrounded by ‘essentials’ Look at us, in our Easterhoull chalet, set-up with all we need: sofa and easy chair pulled up for views of the bay, all those gadgets plugged in! Camera plugged in to laptop to download a day’s images, bringing up the local weather forecast on laptop so we can plan our itinerary for Saturday en route for Northmavine, plugged in for inescapable world news! And surrounded by maps and leaflets to plan the next day’s itinerary. The chalet crammed with our provisions all in plastic carrier bags.
Arriving at Urafirth we hear of otter and stop up until midnight in the hope of seeing them, but they keep their heads down. Firth- an inlet, a maritime outlook.
FISHING in SHETLAND
HAAF and Boat Haven
Fethaland. To headland and lighthouse and nearby steatite quarry (the soap stone used for cooking pots etc.) A lochan with red throated diver. I hear lapwing. We take the track to the lighthouse, crossing a beach at the Haaf- ruins for the sixareen deep-sea fishing that was based here. Boys and old men dried the fish on stones on the beach, with nooks where the rowing boats for six men were hauled up. Beyond the lighthouse to Yellow Stack, the most northerly point.
At South Ham, lichen on stones of deserted cottages, ruins of another fishing Haaf.
An Unst fisherman was lost on Tuesday 28th whilst out setting lobsterpots- we were aware of helicopters as a full-scale search was on. Days later, we ascend over the Ward of Petester to pick up the end of a defunct military track, just below the summit of Houllna Gruna., down the track where we meet coastguards seeking the 46 year old lobster fisherman whose boat is discovered washed ashore at Scaw. The search has been downgraded, he is lost.
Unst Boat Haven where we have the undivided attention of the proud custodian and meet the lady who has researched the new display about the herring fishing and the gutter-girls. This museum brings together so much that we explore and discover. We begin with the sixareen, the six-man rowing boat used for deep water fishing. And the foureen, a four man boat. And the Haaf communities. Haaf: Old Norse, Danish Hav. Of deep sea fishing, cod etc. We hear of fishermen and sixareens lost in an Atlantic storm - a tragedy for the community.
Herring fishing: gutter lasses would despatch some 40-60 herring per minute! Better in some ways than a life in service, they could earn in 3 months what they would earn in service over a year. Herring fishing was here from 1870s to 1905. In decline by WW1. They took over from the Dutch who had mastered the art of curing at sea on their ‘busses’. The gutter-lasses gutted at Baltasound , fish were stacked and dried on a pebbly beach- artificial pebble beach created at Barrafrith. From Baltasound the herring fishing focus moved to Lerwick when more modern vessels came into use. The lasses, who came from Northumberland and the Highlands, followed the migrating herring south to Lowestoft, then in September to the Isle of Wight.
Norwick to the Taing. Norwick is a scenic, east-facing sandy beach. Wick of Skaw. Geological collision . ophiolite and continental crust. Skaw granite.
UNST from Scraefeld
We arrive at Baltisound and drive out to Scraefield, our lime-washed cottage by the ruined church where six Norwegian sailors, torpedoed in WW2, then lost when their lifeboat foundered, are buried. A derelict cottage stands by our holiday cottage surrounded by neatly cut grass. The kitchen is small, the small windows deeply embrasured against the winds- it is a windy and chilly evening.
To Baltisound, an interpretative board and the harbour featured in ‘Coast.’ There was quarrying from the 1820s onward, for chromite. We read the board through binoculars as there is drizzle, and steam from our coffee mists the car windows. The herring fishing fleet was here, in decline before WW1 and afterwards it moved to Lerwick and New Harbour with the coming of more modern vessels. Some 200 vessels , 700 permanent residents and 10,000 in the summer season, gutting, curing and deep sea fishing. The bay is now quiet, seaweed and calm water. Coast gave a virtual realisation of the fleet.
To Lerwick, to visit the broch at Climilinin once surrounded by water, now orchids bloom and a causeway takes us there. Reflections of Lerwick in the water.
Tingwall, a Viking meeting place, an idyll. One of many. Hot sun. A fisherman in a rowing boat, another in thigh waders, silent and still. Terns fly low over the water of the loch, taking aquatic insects, so common terns. By a buttercup pasture a farmer is making haylage, his tractor followed by gulls. There are yellow iris, marsh marigold, bogbean and orchids- magenta orchids. The soundscape is tern calling, always, and curlew.
Mavis Grind (the gate of the narrow isthmus) a narrow neck of land used to haul boats overland to avoid the longer journey around the north mainland.
Approaching Mavis Grind, we pass a lochan where a couple are photographing a red throated diver on a nest and we have splendid views, the light glows off its throat. Shetland is the stronghold of the red-throated diver, or red-throated loon, with populations on Orkney and the Outer Hebrides. They breed on fresh water lochs and lochans, usually close to the water’s edge- as this bird and the one on the Loch of Funzie, Fetlar. The rufous neck patch is dark and can look black at a distance, so its pale grey throat and plain upperparts are the best long-range markers. Its bill is up-tilted, often pointing slightly upwards - a distinctive feature. It’s an offence to photograph a diver on the nest without a licence- but I wonder how many visitors know that. I didn’t in 2011.
A landscape of abandoned crofts en route, circles, cells of stone walls being taken back into the earth whence they came. Earlier generations made less impact and more recently abandoned farmsteads have clutter of vehicles and metal implements. The historic landscapes of The Clearances, picking out patterns of agriculture and earlier land use. A theme that evolves during our visit.
We spend some time at Lerwick museum in these first days- rain and low cloud so far- an opportunity to focus on geology, habitation through the ages (archaeology) and culture. How they make use of everything! Stone houses, quern stones, artefacts of stone and bone- flints, cooking pots. A culture defined by stone and bone, of course- the Stone Age- a sustainable, low-impact lifestyle. Surrounded by ‘essentials’ Look at us, in our Easterhoull chalet, set-up with all we need: sofa and easy chair pulled up for views of the bay, all those gadgets plugged in! Camera plugged in to laptop to download a day’s images, bringing up the local weather forecast on laptop so we can plan our itinerary for Saturday en route for Northmavine, plugged in for inescapable world news! And surrounded by maps and leaflets to plan the next day’s itinerary. The chalet crammed with our provisions all in plastic carrier bags.
Arriving at Urafirth we hear of otter and stop up until midnight in the hope of seeing them, but they keep their heads down. Firth- an inlet, a maritime outlook.
FISHING in SHETLAND
HAAF and Boat Haven
Fethaland. To headland and lighthouse and nearby steatite quarry (the soap stone used for cooking pots etc.) A lochan with red throated diver. I hear lapwing. We take the track to the lighthouse, crossing a beach at the Haaf- ruins for the sixareen deep-sea fishing that was based here. Boys and old men dried the fish on stones on the beach, with nooks where the rowing boats for six men were hauled up. Beyond the lighthouse to Yellow Stack, the most northerly point.
At South Ham, lichen on stones of deserted cottages, ruins of another fishing Haaf.
An Unst fisherman was lost on Tuesday 28th whilst out setting lobsterpots- we were aware of helicopters as a full-scale search was on. Days later, we ascend over the Ward of Petester to pick up the end of a defunct military track, just below the summit of Houllna Gruna., down the track where we meet coastguards seeking the 46 year old lobster fisherman whose boat is discovered washed ashore at Scaw. The search has been downgraded, he is lost.
Unst Boat Haven where we have the undivided attention of the proud custodian and meet the lady who has researched the new display about the herring fishing and the gutter-girls. This museum brings together so much that we explore and discover. We begin with the sixareen, the six-man rowing boat used for deep water fishing. And the foureen, a four man boat. And the Haaf communities. Haaf: Old Norse, Danish Hav. Of deep sea fishing, cod etc. We hear of fishermen and sixareens lost in an Atlantic storm - a tragedy for the community.
Herring fishing: gutter lasses would despatch some 40-60 herring per minute! Better in some ways than a life in service, they could earn in 3 months what they would earn in service over a year. Herring fishing was here from 1870s to 1905. In decline by WW1. They took over from the Dutch who had mastered the art of curing at sea on their ‘busses’. The gutter-lasses gutted at Baltasound , fish were stacked and dried on a pebbly beach- artificial pebble beach created at Barrafrith. From Baltasound the herring fishing focus moved to Lerwick when more modern vessels came into use. The lasses, who came from Northumberland and the Highlands, followed the migrating herring south to Lowestoft, then in September to the Isle of Wight.
Norwick to the Taing. Norwick is a scenic, east-facing sandy beach. Wick of Skaw. Geological collision . ophiolite and continental crust. Skaw granite.
UNST from Scraefeld
We arrive at Baltisound and drive out to Scraefield, our lime-washed cottage by the ruined church where six Norwegian sailors, torpedoed in WW2, then lost when their lifeboat foundered, are buried. A derelict cottage stands by our holiday cottage surrounded by neatly cut grass. The kitchen is small, the small windows deeply embrasured against the winds- it is a windy and chilly evening.
To Baltisound, an interpretative board and the harbour featured in ‘Coast.’ There was quarrying from the 1820s onward, for chromite. We read the board through binoculars as there is drizzle, and steam from our coffee mists the car windows. The herring fishing fleet was here, in decline before WW1 and afterwards it moved to Lerwick and New Harbour with the coming of more modern vessels. Some 200 vessels , 700 permanent residents and 10,000 in the summer season, gutting, curing and deep sea fishing. The bay is now quiet, seaweed and calm water. Coast gave a virtual realisation of the fleet.
Grind Da Navir, Esha Ness, North Mavine
Suggest geology section of Lerwick museum
The Grind Da Navir is the creation of Atlantic storms. We see it in perfect light, calm seas and still, an awesome solitude. A cloudy mizzly day grows brighter with wonderful cloudscape and seascape and stacks, long geos on this coast. It’s not difficult to clamber out over the irregular stepped amphitheatre of rocks- how this must resound in a storm! Bedded reddish cliffs attacked by the sea, showing the shearing of storms and comparatively newly exposed surfaces of a fresher pink. A complex cave gulch with protecting pillars of rock, behind the chute a subterranean passage and cave. In storms, a volume of sea water and rock is thrown-up and batters this exposed cliff. The rock is ignimbrite, formed by a nuee ardent, the pyroclastic flow of strata volcano of Eshaness. Now being pounded by storms, the ponds will probably be wrecked in the 21st century. On this lovely day the seaward pond is brilliant with fluorescent green seaweed, and we wonder if the second landward pond has more of freshwater. Fulmar fly between the pillars of rock, and further out to sea gannet. We photograph gleaming white gannet flying between the pillars. One on sea-watch, timing the bird’s approach, the other calls out ‘ now’. Distance is deceptive and they scarcely show on the image. The full sensuousness of the Shetland experience defies photography: the invigorating wind and sun, the smell of the sea, that transitional zone between sea and land where the cries of seabirds are lost to skylark and wheatear (and the cry of peregrine which was a secret when they came to breed in Shetland back in 2011)
Our return walk follows a moorland track where a lapwing defends its young against an arctic skua.
The last half-hour of the day at the Tangwick Haa museum, we're always the last to leave. Built in the late 17th century for the Cheyne family, lairds of the Tangwick estate. An excellent display about the geology of Eshaness, with samples and maps. Ignimbrite is formed from a nuee ardent, a glowing cloud of the pyroclastic flow. We agree the coast itself is not as lovely as yesterday but this is a day of clarity and beautiful cloudscapes and the Grind o Da Navir was grand.
Ignimbrite and the volcano is the stuff of storytelling, for us. Here is born the legend of Ignimbrite Drong and his sisters Agatha and Amethyst, offspring of MAG MA, a woman of instability and volatile temperament. Ignimbrite, a fire-brand in his youth. He and his sisters form a pop group called ‘The Vesicles.’ We develop characters as showers form over Foula and its cliffs are lost in rain.
Drangr- pointed rock, Old Norse
Suggest geology section of Lerwick museum
The Grind Da Navir is the creation of Atlantic storms. We see it in perfect light, calm seas and still, an awesome solitude. A cloudy mizzly day grows brighter with wonderful cloudscape and seascape and stacks, long geos on this coast. It’s not difficult to clamber out over the irregular stepped amphitheatre of rocks- how this must resound in a storm! Bedded reddish cliffs attacked by the sea, showing the shearing of storms and comparatively newly exposed surfaces of a fresher pink. A complex cave gulch with protecting pillars of rock, behind the chute a subterranean passage and cave. In storms, a volume of sea water and rock is thrown-up and batters this exposed cliff. The rock is ignimbrite, formed by a nuee ardent, the pyroclastic flow of strata volcano of Eshaness. Now being pounded by storms, the ponds will probably be wrecked in the 21st century. On this lovely day the seaward pond is brilliant with fluorescent green seaweed, and we wonder if the second landward pond has more of freshwater. Fulmar fly between the pillars of rock, and further out to sea gannet. We photograph gleaming white gannet flying between the pillars. One on sea-watch, timing the bird’s approach, the other calls out ‘ now’. Distance is deceptive and they scarcely show on the image. The full sensuousness of the Shetland experience defies photography: the invigorating wind and sun, the smell of the sea, that transitional zone between sea and land where the cries of seabirds are lost to skylark and wheatear (and the cry of peregrine which was a secret when they came to breed in Shetland back in 2011)
Our return walk follows a moorland track where a lapwing defends its young against an arctic skua.
The last half-hour of the day at the Tangwick Haa museum, we're always the last to leave. Built in the late 17th century for the Cheyne family, lairds of the Tangwick estate. An excellent display about the geology of Eshaness, with samples and maps. Ignimbrite is formed from a nuee ardent, a glowing cloud of the pyroclastic flow. We agree the coast itself is not as lovely as yesterday but this is a day of clarity and beautiful cloudscapes and the Grind o Da Navir was grand.
Ignimbrite and the volcano is the stuff of storytelling, for us. Here is born the legend of Ignimbrite Drong and his sisters Agatha and Amethyst, offspring of MAG MA, a woman of instability and volatile temperament. Ignimbrite, a fire-brand in his youth. He and his sisters form a pop group called ‘The Vesicles.’ We develop characters as showers form over Foula and its cliffs are lost in rain.
Drangr- pointed rock, Old Norse
Sunday 19 June Hillswick
Hanging out washing in the chill of the early morning, I lock myself out. Alone with the call of whimbrel, curlew and lark song. A lapping of waves from an inlet of the sea, with marsh orchid flowering about our house. Our freshly laundered clothes dance to an Atlantic tune.
And should the rain return before we do, there's the Raeburn for drying. The windows of our light and cosy kitchen look out onto the firth and the jetty where we watch for otter. Shall we celebrate Father's Day with a cooked breakfast? A leisurely start at Urafirth.
Why is Ronas Hill so memorable ? The highest hill in Shetland and a focal point throughout our trip.
To Hillswick and the Bay of Sandwick, a fine pebbled beach and boulders of red granite.
The Hanseatic House of 1684 was a trading booth, they’re a Shetland feature.
Braewick and the wonderfully named Villians of Hamnavoe along a rather sombre coast . Whalwick Taing (Bay of whales) Grassy soft cliff above dark eroded ground. Toward South Head and Punds Water there come lichen, thrift covered rocks. Gannets out to sea. A group of five dunlin and a ringed plover. To the Burn of Tinga that flows into a gloomy Warie Gill and debouches into the sea through a rock gulch. Cross the beck and from the cliff edge I am beckoned ever nearer to see a waterfall. We proceed to the Hole of Geuda, a blow hole on a fiercer day than this. Cliffs of thrift and lichen, a stack with maritime flowers, with fulmar- they often choose a nest site with floral surround. Dived bombed by oystercatchers that screech along the cliffs, we must be too close to their nests. Fulmar facing each other on a nest, sky-pointing, they open their beaks and clack at each other – is this courtship ritual? Look at my fine beak for catching fish for our chicks! ? 'I can see right down its throat,' you say. A third bird hovers on an updraft and tried to land. This is the loveliest part of our walk.
Returning, we pass several abandoned crofts with lots of sheep and some cattle in the landscape. Some very dark unusual sheep – we learn they are called murret and there’s a poster of all known shades. Never seen such rivers of cotton grass- I love it. Past lochans, ringed plover, bonxie, larks everywhere singing. By the Giant’s stones and back to Hamnavoe for lunch at 3.45pm.
To Tangwick Haa, an excellent local museum- on crafting, peat digging, geology etc.
Monday 20 June Ronas HIll
To Shetland’s fjord at Ronas Voe, with granite geology. Set out from the radio masts for Ronas Hill, Shetland’s highest point at 450 metres, experience Arctic conditions – says a leaflet guide. A dry and windy day, with some mist and low cloud up on the hill. Lochans in the peat landscape, then we ascend into rock, the granite ‘fell field’, reddish rock surrounded by tiny graded pebbles created by crytobation – a freeze-thaw action. Soft to walk on gravels, mosses and lichens. Heath spotted orchid, viola, with butterwort in wet places. I hear and see golden plover before we arrive at the masts. Our golden plover day par excellence. Golden plover on the horizon and we stop to watch. A pair perch on rocks and run amongst them. On our descent we find more - their black breasts are bordered with a scroll of white plumage. What can they feed on up here amongst rock, small alpines, crowberry not yet in berry, a glaucous plant of blue-green that I discover later to be sea plantain, moss, the tiniest heather and alpine alchemilla. Then you find the azalea I’ve so much hoped for- Creeping or mountain azalea, Loiseleuria procumbens. How did you do it? The flower is unknown to you, tiny, plants scattered and not abundant. Tiny flowers so it’s helpful to learn the leaf and to look for the woody stems trailing over rock. There is mountain everlasting here and a strange plant with deep purple buds. Plants here that are new to me- modified by the harsh environment, maritime influence, minerals in the fell-field. You like the club moss and call it Arctic crowns, that’s the shape of it. On Ronas Hill there is a chambered cairn and we go in to investigate, We sit in a stone shelter by the trig point and I write in the visitors book ‘ I recommend my mountain guide’. A lovely evocative and misty light above boulders and fell-field, this unique habitat and the only mountain azalea site in Shetland. Ronas Hill, the red headland in Old Norse. We continue to see the hill on so many of our excursions about Shetland. I love the geology, the terraces of fell field, the solitude- always the solitude. Geomorphology is clear to marvel at on Ronas Hill. Wish we had done the full hill and cliff long walk. On our descent we achieve the golden plover photograph as we listen to that plaintive cry that I love so well. We spy a hare on the horizon, brown, is it a brown hare? And we watch it amongst the rocks.
Ronas Hill gladdened my heart. Here is the world as God made it, where man has trodden but lightly over the centuries. It is not often so. There is the chambered cairn, the trig, a pile of stones- otherwise sculpted rock, gravels of fell-field and a wilderness rock garden.
Fethaland. To headland and lighthouse and nearby steatite quarry (the soap stone used for cooking pots etc.) A lochan with red throated diver. We take the track to the lighthouse, crossing a beach at the Haaf- ruins of cottages for the sixareen deep sea fishing that was based here. Boys and old men dried the fish on stones on the beach, with nooks where the rowing boats for six men were hauled up onto the beach. Beyond the lighthouse to Yellow Stack, the most northerly point. Back along the track. At a farm where we parked I talked with the lady who told me the dark sheep were called murret. Three girls invite us into the barn to admire their Shelties and when we ask if we may photograph them leading the ponies into nearby pastures and they’re pleased as punch. Lovely pastures of yellow iris and red campion and ragged robin.
Hanging out washing in the chill of the early morning, I lock myself out. Alone with the call of whimbrel, curlew and lark song. A lapping of waves from an inlet of the sea, with marsh orchid flowering about our house. Our freshly laundered clothes dance to an Atlantic tune.
And should the rain return before we do, there's the Raeburn for drying. The windows of our light and cosy kitchen look out onto the firth and the jetty where we watch for otter. Shall we celebrate Father's Day with a cooked breakfast? A leisurely start at Urafirth.
Why is Ronas Hill so memorable ? The highest hill in Shetland and a focal point throughout our trip.
To Hillswick and the Bay of Sandwick, a fine pebbled beach and boulders of red granite.
The Hanseatic House of 1684 was a trading booth, they’re a Shetland feature.
Braewick and the wonderfully named Villians of Hamnavoe along a rather sombre coast . Whalwick Taing (Bay of whales) Grassy soft cliff above dark eroded ground. Toward South Head and Punds Water there come lichen, thrift covered rocks. Gannets out to sea. A group of five dunlin and a ringed plover. To the Burn of Tinga that flows into a gloomy Warie Gill and debouches into the sea through a rock gulch. Cross the beck and from the cliff edge I am beckoned ever nearer to see a waterfall. We proceed to the Hole of Geuda, a blow hole on a fiercer day than this. Cliffs of thrift and lichen, a stack with maritime flowers, with fulmar- they often choose a nest site with floral surround. Dived bombed by oystercatchers that screech along the cliffs, we must be too close to their nests. Fulmar facing each other on a nest, sky-pointing, they open their beaks and clack at each other – is this courtship ritual? Look at my fine beak for catching fish for our chicks! ? 'I can see right down its throat,' you say. A third bird hovers on an updraft and tried to land. This is the loveliest part of our walk.
Returning, we pass several abandoned crofts with lots of sheep and some cattle in the landscape. Some very dark unusual sheep – we learn they are called murret and there’s a poster of all known shades. Never seen such rivers of cotton grass- I love it. Past lochans, ringed plover, bonxie, larks everywhere singing. By the Giant’s stones and back to Hamnavoe for lunch at 3.45pm.
To Tangwick Haa, an excellent local museum- on crafting, peat digging, geology etc.
Monday 20 June Ronas HIll
To Shetland’s fjord at Ronas Voe, with granite geology. Set out from the radio masts for Ronas Hill, Shetland’s highest point at 450 metres, experience Arctic conditions – says a leaflet guide. A dry and windy day, with some mist and low cloud up on the hill. Lochans in the peat landscape, then we ascend into rock, the granite ‘fell field’, reddish rock surrounded by tiny graded pebbles created by crytobation – a freeze-thaw action. Soft to walk on gravels, mosses and lichens. Heath spotted orchid, viola, with butterwort in wet places. I hear and see golden plover before we arrive at the masts. Our golden plover day par excellence. Golden plover on the horizon and we stop to watch. A pair perch on rocks and run amongst them. On our descent we find more - their black breasts are bordered with a scroll of white plumage. What can they feed on up here amongst rock, small alpines, crowberry not yet in berry, a glaucous plant of blue-green that I discover later to be sea plantain, moss, the tiniest heather and alpine alchemilla. Then you find the azalea I’ve so much hoped for- Creeping or mountain azalea, Loiseleuria procumbens. How did you do it? The flower is unknown to you, tiny, plants scattered and not abundant. Tiny flowers so it’s helpful to learn the leaf and to look for the woody stems trailing over rock. There is mountain everlasting here and a strange plant with deep purple buds. Plants here that are new to me- modified by the harsh environment, maritime influence, minerals in the fell-field. You like the club moss and call it Arctic crowns, that’s the shape of it. On Ronas Hill there is a chambered cairn and we go in to investigate, We sit in a stone shelter by the trig point and I write in the visitors book ‘ I recommend my mountain guide’. A lovely evocative and misty light above boulders and fell-field, this unique habitat and the only mountain azalea site in Shetland. Ronas Hill, the red headland in Old Norse. We continue to see the hill on so many of our excursions about Shetland. I love the geology, the terraces of fell field, the solitude- always the solitude. Geomorphology is clear to marvel at on Ronas Hill. Wish we had done the full hill and cliff long walk. On our descent we achieve the golden plover photograph as we listen to that plaintive cry that I love so well. We spy a hare on the horizon, brown, is it a brown hare? And we watch it amongst the rocks.
Ronas Hill gladdened my heart. Here is the world as God made it, where man has trodden but lightly over the centuries. It is not often so. There is the chambered cairn, the trig, a pile of stones- otherwise sculpted rock, gravels of fell-field and a wilderness rock garden.
Fethaland. To headland and lighthouse and nearby steatite quarry (the soap stone used for cooking pots etc.) A lochan with red throated diver. We take the track to the lighthouse, crossing a beach at the Haaf- ruins of cottages for the sixareen deep sea fishing that was based here. Boys and old men dried the fish on stones on the beach, with nooks where the rowing boats for six men were hauled up onto the beach. Beyond the lighthouse to Yellow Stack, the most northerly point. Back along the track. At a farm where we parked I talked with the lady who told me the dark sheep were called murret. Three girls invite us into the barn to admire their Shelties and when we ask if we may photograph them leading the ponies into nearby pastures and they’re pleased as punch. Lovely pastures of yellow iris and red campion and ragged robin.
Sunday 26 June
First thing, I hang out washing in the drizzle with only the silence and birdsong. A few remote cottages, some ruined. A field where grey lag geese graze.
As we set out last evening for the harbour we met the elderly couple who used to live in the next door cottage that falls into ruin. The woman gave me white bread to feed their sheep and the man brought a bottle of milk for lambs whose mother could not supply enough nutrition. She told us how their fleece colours are named. He offered us fresh eggs for our cooked breakfast, a Sunday special.
A bonxie tugs at the flesh of a rabbit and a hooded crow seeks to join in. An oystercatcher yells at the bonxie.
To Hamar House. Orographic cloud hangs over the Keen of Hamar. Shelties with foals in a field of buttercups. At Haroldswick a reprise of 18 basking seals and a trip-tick of two swallows, our only swallows.
The Keen of Hamar for Edmonston’s chickweed, aka Shetland mouse-ear. Norwegian sandwort too, and the perfect sea plantain. This is rare habitat, an expanse of serpentine debris. It is thought that chemicals in the soil might be responsible for the purple tinge of several species: leaves of sea plantain and sorrel. There are grassy patches amidst the broken rock, with mountain everlasting, seed heads of moss campion, prostrate St John’s Wort with reddish stems, and squill offset by rock. Sea plantain is advanced from the Ronas Hill glaucous leaves and has open flowers. We are on our knees in the sharp fragments of serpentine taking photographs of Edmonston’s chickweed. A professor of botany at 20, he published his finding and was killed that same year in South America.
First thing, I hang out washing in the drizzle with only the silence and birdsong. A few remote cottages, some ruined. A field where grey lag geese graze.
As we set out last evening for the harbour we met the elderly couple who used to live in the next door cottage that falls into ruin. The woman gave me white bread to feed their sheep and the man brought a bottle of milk for lambs whose mother could not supply enough nutrition. She told us how their fleece colours are named. He offered us fresh eggs for our cooked breakfast, a Sunday special.
A bonxie tugs at the flesh of a rabbit and a hooded crow seeks to join in. An oystercatcher yells at the bonxie.
To Hamar House. Orographic cloud hangs over the Keen of Hamar. Shelties with foals in a field of buttercups. At Haroldswick a reprise of 18 basking seals and a trip-tick of two swallows, our only swallows.
The Keen of Hamar for Edmonston’s chickweed, aka Shetland mouse-ear. Norwegian sandwort too, and the perfect sea plantain. This is rare habitat, an expanse of serpentine debris. It is thought that chemicals in the soil might be responsible for the purple tinge of several species: leaves of sea plantain and sorrel. There are grassy patches amidst the broken rock, with mountain everlasting, seed heads of moss campion, prostrate St John’s Wort with reddish stems, and squill offset by rock. Sea plantain is advanced from the Ronas Hill glaucous leaves and has open flowers. We are on our knees in the sharp fragments of serpentine taking photographs of Edmonston’s chickweed. A professor of botany at 20, he published his finding and was killed that same year in South America.
Hermaness Nature Reserve An excellent exhibition . Gneiss- rough moorland, with golden plover and the highest density of bonxies I’ve ever seen. A board -walk protects birds by keeping walkers on a prescribed course- over blanket bog and pools. We find a nesting pair with a fluffy chick not far from the boardwalk and they seem unperturbed, possibly used to passers- by. On the cliffs, we photograph puffin with sandeels. The sea stacks are the domain of the gannets and rafts of them float on the sea. They dive in rapid- fire succession, like a discharge of shot, some in raking angled dives, not from a great height. Stacks white with guano mark out the gannetries along the cliffs – they cement their nests with it. They are patterned over the rock, on rock, avoiding grass. We can make out the immature birds with darker plumage. At five years old they are all- white and mature. At Neap, cliffs rise to 170 metres and we are looking down on the gannets. On toward Muckle Flugga goes the series of gannet stacks. Muckle Flugga with its Stevenson lighthouse is the most northerly point. The history of sea birds on these cliffs is erratic. Gannets thrive, so do bonxies, and fulmar are a comparatively recent arrival. So just what did breed on these cliffs when Stevenson built Muckle Flugga?
Out on the headland it is raining, the light is poor and it’s hard to see and the bonxies dive and scour about. As I lurch over boggy ground in come the bonxies, turning and flying low right at me, veering off at the last moment. We're being seen off. They come so close but they do not strike us. The board-walk bonxies seem familiar with the proximity of visitors and are unfazed. Out on the headland it's different.
Tuesday 28 June
The cockerel of Scraefield struts his stuff, fulmar nest in the ruined church and we explore church and graveyard with memorial to Norwegian sailors surviving a torpedo strike but with their lifeboat wrecked three days later.
Uyea Sound, jetty and beach . To Muness Castle and the Ham of Muness. We love a good bartisan. Patrick Stewart was here too. Went to the headland of Ness whose point is Trolla Skerry and walked as far as Braewick Stack. An arctic skua showed, with bonxies and redshank. To Hannigarth.
Sandwick with Arctic tern, an iron age settlement, a Norse settlement, and abandoned crofts.
Clivocast standing stone, with lichen. Lunch at Lundawick, near St Olaf’s Church.
Drive to Westing, overlooking remaining settlement on west side of Unst with evidence of abandoned former crofts. Climb past Gorsa Water, blanket mire habitat on to Vallafield, old military road with posts to 216 m trig point and former radar relaying station. Views to north coast of Yell and to Fethaland, to Ronas Hill and mainland. Views west coast of Unst. Descended, rough it is, to Ness of Collister to pick up former track to homesteads. A day of luminous white cloud, and sun. Stunning skyscapes. Song of skylarks all the way, with one or two golden plover. We pass a lovely lochan with cotton grass and a camouflage hide set up overlooking it.
9.00pm ‘ Come and listen.’ We sit in sunlight outside the cottage with lambs bleating, curlew in exquisite rippling song, grey lag geese grazing. And a faint, elusive sound we love to hear. A sound of summer, of long summer evenings. A winnowing of the air, tail-feathers spread in resounding display flight. Snipe drumming, circling above us, rising silently, then seconds of drumming in descent, rising, and falling with tail-feathers beating the air. The bird shows against the sky, circling in rhythmic flight pattern, an energetic display. We sit for a long, contemplative while deep in the evening.
Out on the headland it is raining, the light is poor and it’s hard to see and the bonxies dive and scour about. As I lurch over boggy ground in come the bonxies, turning and flying low right at me, veering off at the last moment. We're being seen off. They come so close but they do not strike us. The board-walk bonxies seem familiar with the proximity of visitors and are unfazed. Out on the headland it's different.
Tuesday 28 June
The cockerel of Scraefield struts his stuff, fulmar nest in the ruined church and we explore church and graveyard with memorial to Norwegian sailors surviving a torpedo strike but with their lifeboat wrecked three days later.
Uyea Sound, jetty and beach . To Muness Castle and the Ham of Muness. We love a good bartisan. Patrick Stewart was here too. Went to the headland of Ness whose point is Trolla Skerry and walked as far as Braewick Stack. An arctic skua showed, with bonxies and redshank. To Hannigarth.
Sandwick with Arctic tern, an iron age settlement, a Norse settlement, and abandoned crofts.
Clivocast standing stone, with lichen. Lunch at Lundawick, near St Olaf’s Church.
Drive to Westing, overlooking remaining settlement on west side of Unst with evidence of abandoned former crofts. Climb past Gorsa Water, blanket mire habitat on to Vallafield, old military road with posts to 216 m trig point and former radar relaying station. Views to north coast of Yell and to Fethaland, to Ronas Hill and mainland. Views west coast of Unst. Descended, rough it is, to Ness of Collister to pick up former track to homesteads. A day of luminous white cloud, and sun. Stunning skyscapes. Song of skylarks all the way, with one or two golden plover. We pass a lovely lochan with cotton grass and a camouflage hide set up overlooking it.
9.00pm ‘ Come and listen.’ We sit in sunlight outside the cottage with lambs bleating, curlew in exquisite rippling song, grey lag geese grazing. And a faint, elusive sound we love to hear. A sound of summer, of long summer evenings. A winnowing of the air, tail-feathers spread in resounding display flight. Snipe drumming, circling above us, rising silently, then seconds of drumming in descent, rising, and falling with tail-feathers beating the air. The bird shows against the sky, circling in rhythmic flight pattern, an energetic display. We sit for a long, contemplative while deep in the evening.
I recommend
BBC radio 4 Living World A Visit to Shetland
Naturalist Bobby Tulloch shares wildlife finds in Shetland.
Immerse yourself in the bird life of the Shetland Isles. The programme was recorded in 1974 and Bobby Tulloch drew on years of intimate knowledge of the Shetland Isles where he was born and lived.
Lerwick Museum
Scalloway Museum has an excellent video ( see online) on the Shetland Bus
Unst Boat Haven is a memorable visit
BBC radio 4 Living World A Visit to Shetland
Naturalist Bobby Tulloch shares wildlife finds in Shetland.
Immerse yourself in the bird life of the Shetland Isles. The programme was recorded in 1974 and Bobby Tulloch drew on years of intimate knowledge of the Shetland Isles where he was born and lived.
Lerwick Museum
Scalloway Museum has an excellent video ( see online) on the Shetland Bus
Unst Boat Haven is a memorable visit