5th June Sunday

Early start despite the late night.  Lovely day.  Went back to Scalloway and went south to Trondra and West Burra, island fingers which are now connected to the mainland by long single lane bridges.

At Duncanslett a museum was marked on the map, and indeed I found a museum in croft building, access to which is by arrangement.  I peered in the windows and it was clearly used for partying – so part of the arrangement must be to give them time to hide the bottles and tidy up the glasses. 

When we came to Shetland in 1975 we stayed in Pete’s croft, very similar to this “museum”.  Pete’s had a first floor, really an attic floor, but didn’t have outhouses (not any I recollect anyway).  And indeed most dwellings, outside the towns of Scalloway and Lerwick were crofts like this or the occasional Laird’s house.  A lot has happened in 35ish years – now there are modern kit houses everywhere (is there any planning?) with gardens and fences and, as the roads are so much better many more fences.

  From this

to this, in 35 years

and a lot of this

Friendly chicken

I had a lovely walk around the island attached to West Burra which is attached by the tombolo and which doesn’t seem to have a name – lots of sea, sky, birds, flowers – nothing particularly photographic.

Another tombolo

 

A nice place to be buried, a Norwegian ship’s carpenter, ship capsized

Come in, the water’s lovely

Foula

An Arctic Skua

Skuas are the “nasties”, the Shetlanders call them “bonxies” and they kill.  The RSPB has a dilema as the bonxies are “interfering” with the red throated divers breeding on Mousa and there is call to cull the skuas… There are 2 sorts here, Great and the more rare Arctic.  They viciously dive bomb you (like terns) if you stray near their nests so I need to wear a thick hat when I go up to HermaNess.

Lots of new marinas, too

 

Same marina at Bridge End from a different angle.

I came back to Lerwick and did what was supposed to be a mini shop and then booked back into the Lerwick campsite thinking I could then go off for the afternoon. I couldn’t get onto the site for 2 hours so I just slept in the Leisure Centre car park over the Sunday paper and since then have done some washing and watched a film – I couldn’t watch tv because I couldn’t get a signal – now I think it was because the aerial wasn’t plugged in.  And I have a plan for tomorrow – if I can’t get on the flight to Fair Isle I will head for