A Winter's Day in Unst

Unst is my favourite island. I couldn't go to Shetland without a trip up to the very top of the British Isles. I woke up at lunchtime on the day after Up Helly Aa (or should that be four hours after Up Helly Aa?) to find everything covered in white including a thick layer over the windscreen. I took a few photos - Lerwick looked so pretty in the snow - and then headed slowly up the winding road out of Lerwick on my way to Unst. 


The further north I got the less snow there was and the clearer the roads were. When I drove off the ferry in Yell I headed to the right on the small road that leads round to Burravoe Pier where there's a lovely little set-up for campers and boaters. A small building, with an old lifeboat for a roof, houses very sleek kitchen, laundry and shower facilities. I had a lovely hot shower, heated my evening meal up in the microwave and filled my flask with hot water. There's an honesty box for payment but no recommended price list for showers and kitchen use. As it's £1.60 to shower at the leisure centres, I chucked a couple of quid in figuring the extra 40p would cover my boiling of the kettle and three minute use of the microwave. 

Thus cleaned and fed I continued on the narrow road up the east coast of Yell. It was dark and the snow had now reached the north. I drove very slowly through a blizzard (at least it seemed like that in my headlights) until I reached the top of the island and the ferry to Unst. There is a wider road further west, but I didn't want to backtrack to get to it. I saw nothing on the drive up apart from a few hardy sheep. I had to be careful of them as they blended into the blizzard, their wool providing the perfect camouflage.

I was the only person on the ferry to Unst. As it was dark and there are toilet facilities at the pier, I parked up and spent the night there.

Next morning it was a bit rainy, a bit gloomy, but not snowy. I drove off to do a quick visit to some of my favourite places. I had thought about doing a short walk, but the peat bog which can be soggy-going to walk on at the best times, looked completely sodden. Instead I drove around taking pics and sat staring at the grey skies and grey seas from the comfort of my driver's seat. I'd wanted to come up here to see if I liked it as much in winter as in summer as part of me would really like to live here at some point. Although it's bleak and I realised it would be difficult to get any good walking done in winter, I still liked it. I sat in the self-service cafe in the Skibhoul bakery for lunch and found two other tourists in there who also had a campervan. Theirs was a proper motorhome type, so I felt I retained my self-imposed title of the craziest person in Shetland for sleeping in the back of a van in the middle of the North Atlantic winter. 

 

Self service really means self service

In the evening I headed back to the pier to catch the ferry back to Yell and did my journey (including the shower stop) in reverse arriving back in Lerwick later that evening.

Here are some pics showing Unst in winter ... 

 The hostel in Uyeasound is a wonderful place in summer. Full of interesting people. And it has a large well-equipped kitchen and a lovely conservatory in which many a late evening has been spent drinking Valhalla beer, chatting and watching the sun finally go down and darkness spread across the water. It's closed in winter and looks really forlorn. And it's strange not see my little green tent perched on the lawn. 

Views of the rocky beach in front of the hostel

Muness Castle was built around 1598 for Laurence Bruce who was half-brother to Robert Stewart, first Earl of Orkney. It burnt down in 1627, supposedly after being attacked by French raiders. Renovations were made, but by the late 1600s it was uninhabited. The Dutch East India Company rented it in 1713 and used it as a storage facility for salvaged cargo from a nearby wreck. It has been completely uninhabited and left to ruin since 1750. It's now owned and maintained by Historic Scotland. Entry is free and the castle is always open and unmanned. Torches are provided at the entrance. 
The old cottage with stone walls is next to the castle. 

Bobby's bus shelter is named after the little boy Bobby Macauley, who at the age of six got fed up waiting for the school bus in a dishevelled and draughty bus shelter and wrote to the council to ask for a new one. The council duly obliged and Bobby got his new bus shelter. Soon, various items of furniture and ornamentation appeared. No-one knows who started it, but the bus shelter soon gained curtains, a sofa (actually an old bus seat) and a TV. Over time, the decorating of Bobby's bus shelter became more formalised and there is now an 'executive committee' (as far as I can find out it's currently his mum) who decides on a theme each year and furnishes it accordingly. The themes are often topical such as an African theme the year Bobby (no longer a little boy) moved to Swaziland, or a World Cup or Queen's Jubilee theme. I'm assuming the theme I've just seen is still last year's and is in honour of Nelson Mandela as he died at the end of the previous year. I'm quite a fan of Nelson Mandela and so was pleased to see him commemorated in this way at what is just about the opposite end of the planet from South Africa.

Probably the world's most photographed bus shelter

These photos were taken at Norwick beach - one of my favourite beaches in Unst. Even on a grey, miserable day I could have stared at it for hours. Imagine living in the white house at the end of the bay and having this view all the time? 
The little 'island' is the Isle o May (I've never managed to find out why it's called that).

Over on the west side of the island is Westing beach and I finished my day here. It was starting to rain huge icy drops and the wind was spattering them over my camera lens. After a last longing look I headed for the ferry pleased to feel I could happily survive a winter here.

A talk on the Arctic and Antarctica

Last night I went along to Lerwick library to listen to Gavin Francis talk about his two books. I can't believe I'd not heard of him before as I consider myself to be quite aware of all the travel writing books on the Arctic and Antarctica. I only knew about last night's talk because of an article in the Shetland Times promoting the event. The article mentioned he'd started his Arctic journey in Unst which is another reason I'm surprised not to have come across him before as I'd thought I'd read all the travel writing books which mention my favourite island in my favourite archipelago.

Gavin Francis is a medical doctor who had spent some time working in East Africa and at the end of his stint he felt the need to go somewhere completely different to the heat and crowds of Africa. The Arctic is a bit different to Africa so this was where he headed using the Great Bear as a defining boundary (he visited places the constellation can be seen from) and concentrating on the European Arctic rather than the American.

He followed a route that led him from Shetland to the Faroes and into Iceland and Greenland, before exploring Spitzbergen and Scandinavian Lapland. To add extra interest to his journey (as though these places aren't already interesting enough!) he followed routes documented by early writers. Shetland, for example, was written about over 2000 years ago by an early Greek traveller, Pytheas, who visited around the time the brochs were being built. As his journey went on he followed the writings of far more up-to-date and modern explorers e.g. the Vikings. 

Obviously he didn't get cold enough in the Arctic because not long after he headed off to Antarctica to spend a year working as the resident doctor on British Antarctic Survey's Halley Base. It took a while to get there on a boat that went via the Falklands, South Georgia and Bird Island. Once there it was all hands to the deck unloading two thousand drums of kerosene. A couple of weeks later, when the unloading was done, the ship left and it was time to settle in to life with just 13 other people.

About half the people on the base are scientists of various disciplines and the rest are support staff, such as the doctor, a chef, mechanics and engineers. He says he hasn't gone into much detail about his role as doctor due to there being so few people it would be too easy for people to know who he was talking about and this would of course break medical confidentiality issues. Instead he talks about his time spent partaking in non-medical activities, such as trips out to visit the neighbours; a colony of Emporer penguins. With the onset of 24 hour darkness there was plenty of time to observe the night skies and become familiar with constellations and blase with auroras. He also found time to write 'True North', his book based on his Arctic travels. Since returning home to Scotland he has written his second book; 'Empire Antarctica'.

His talk last night, was divided into two half hour sessions, one for each book, with a 15 minute break between and a Q&A session at the end. The talk was engaging and interspersed with a few short readings from his own books and those of relevant others. He also passed around a few artefacts, such as his boots and gloves (big, bulky, heavy) and an Emperor penguin egg (pointy, bumpy, slightly larger than a duck egg). The library was full, with people even sitting upstairs in what would have originally been the choir (it's in an old church). Many of them were older and although there were a lot of locals present, there were tourists other than myself. I sat next to a Dutch lady who was in Lerwick with her husband on their yacht. They have sailed all over the world, including all the places Gavin spoke about. They funded their nomadic, floatational lifestyle by running a yacht business and the lady also wrote books and magazine articles on sailing and their travels.

Now I have even more ideas buzzing around inside my head. I love all the inspiration I get up here from all the amazing people I'm constantly meeting. I hope I continue to get ideas and inspiration from Orkney, though I'm sure I will. I leave on the ferry tonight.

Muckle Flugga

I've just been catching up on Alastair Humphreys' blog and see he cycled the length of Shetland recently and finished up by camping at Hermaness on the north coast of Unst. Unst is the most northerly island in Britain (not counting 2 lumps of rock, one of which is Muckle Flugga). 

I found myself there last summer - I actually should have been in Iran, but that's a whole other story - and fulfilled (kind of) an ambition by seeing Muckle Flugga. I've always been fascinated with it ever since I first heard the name on the shipping forecast. It's basically a rock with a now un-manned lighthouse on it. But it's a far away rock with a funny sounding name and those are two things that always appeal to me. I liked it so much when I finally saw it that I ended up seeing it three times. 

The first was when I walked along the Hermaness cliffs which are fascinating enough in themselves because of their huge gannet colony and puffins. Then I went on a boat trip around Muckle Flugga and got a close up view of it. On my last day in Unst I climbed up Saxa Vord which has a military radar station sat on its top. 

I felt very intrepid as I ignored signs warning me of snow and ice. I felt very adventurous as I next ignored signs warning me that I would be arrested under the official secrets act if I went any further. I felt very heroic as I ignored signs at the top that warned me I would be irradiated if I got any closer. (I'd actually been told by locals that it was fine to ignore the signs and everyone does). I'd gone up partly because I wanted to have the experience of ignoring all those signs and partly because it has great views of Muckle Flugga. At the top I ran into the guard who goes up once a day to check on the place. He didn't arrest me, just told me where to go to get the best views and advised me not to get too close to the radar bits that really do have radiation in them. 

So I've seen plenty of Muckle Flugga and that should have been that ambition fulfilled. But at the hostel I met a few kayakers, two of whom had actually paddled out to the rock, landed and climbed up to the lighthouse. This is not allowed but, as I found with Saxa Vord, no-one seems to bother with things like 'not being allowed' in Unst. I was jealous and so decided that I have to learn to kayak so I can also land on Muckle Flugga. The sea is pretty rough so it's not just a case of learning the basics and going for it - I also have to get good at it. But this is why I have learning to canoe/kayak on my list of things to do.  

I'm going to go back to Shetland this summer after I have walked the Great Glen Way. I'll go back to Unst and gaze at Muckle Flugga from afar again. As I've done nothing about learning to kayak this year that will be the most I can do. But one year I will definitely paddle to it, climb the steps and touch those lighthouse walls.