Blogging at 21:55 on Sunday 7th April from intended overnighting spot N 60.61362°, W 00.94581° / http://maps.google.com/maps?q=loc:60.61362%2C-00.94581
It's been a full-on day! It's also been pleasingly warmer; well, less freezing at least. And brighter than of late. The wind switched to a southerly overnight, and though it's still blowing a hoolie, we're at least able to step off the truck without being adorned in full winter gear. It's the first day since we left mainland Scotland where we haven't had to have one or more of the onboard heaters working constantly.
First up we made our way from Yell to Unst (by ferry): the most northerly populated island in the UK. We agreed that the further north we went the less brooding and more visually appealing the landscapes became; most probably mainly down to geology. Unst definitely has a similar feel to the southern half of the Outer Hebrides, which is - in our view - praise indeed. The landscapes are both dramatic yet gentle and give a sense of massive wide-open untrammelled spaces. Add in some truly dramatic coastline, stacks and beaches, plus some machair and strikingly clear seas and, well, it's very pretty indeed.
The same incredibly disarming friendliness we encountered on Bressay was also evident on Unst. It was genuinely warming to have random drivers and people just generally out-and-about waving and smiling as we pootled our way from random spot to equally random spot.
One of the less-than-random spots we visited was Hermaness National Nature Reserve at the very to top of all that is the United Kingdom. From the car park here we headed further north still and did something of a fell run in order to get to see the Muckle Flugga Lighthouse and Out Stack, the most northerly rocky outlier of the entire UK.
It was genuinely fantastic. The land and seascapes were astounding, the sun was on our backs and the skylarks were singing. We saw some amazing seabird colonies (gannets, mainly) and some of the best sea stacks and rugged coastlines we've ever encountered. I think only the cliffs and stacks we had the privilege of seeing at St Kilda were even more dramatic. Runs don't get much better than this one was (pic).
From there we had a lazy lunch then headed to the northernmost point that it's (currently) possible to drive to in the UK. The sight of a now abandoned RAF station atop Saxa Vord. The road up there doesn't appear to be public, but access is definitely allowed. From the heights of the station the views out over the entire Shetland archipelago were just amazing.
From there we descended back to a more agreeable altitude and took in a few Viking heritage sights including a seaworthy longboat and replica longhouse. The Viking heritage is clearly something that remains important up here and as well as the numerous well preserved archaeological and cultural sites, there are still apparently many day-to-day nods to the ancestry, as well as formal celebratory festivals.
That really should have been enough for one day but a bit of a scan of the map and ferry timetables meant the intriguing possibility of taking a ferry to the island of Fetlar presented itself: if we got a wriggle on. Soon after the realisation, we made haste for the relevant pier and before we'd really fully decided to commit found ourselves the only vehicle aboard the Shetland Ferry Service boat bobbing across the sound.
Fetlar we are now on, then. The island has a population of only 60 people and to this point we haven't seen a single one of them. We basically decanted from the boat and drove about a mile to the map feature that is currently home. We have a good view out and Emma's been on otter watch most of the evening. No otters, but plenty of birdlife including a bit of a rarity in the form of a solitary purple sandpiper in amongst a flock of a dozen turnstones.
So, that's about it for today: apart from the boots...
There's a neatly placed pair right next to the back entrance to the truck that seem to be from the 1980s or so, and which clearly haven't been moved for a goodly long time (no vegetation beneath them and they've started to indent the ground). Dark thoughts of disturbing pagan festivals spring to mind. As blog readers will know, we discovered Jesus's actual sandals nailed to a tree in a random forest clearing in France about 15 years ago (they're still there, incidentally) and now this!
We worry slightly that some or other supernatural entity is trying to communicate a humanity-critical message to us using the medium of eminently useable footwear.
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