Shetland 2021

 

So, 10th September 2021 saw us travelling up from Durham to Aberdeen to catch the MV Hjaltland for Shetland.  The pic above is from Wikipedia I'm afraid and shows the ship docked at Aberdeen.  Although we'd planned the journey very carefully to allow plenty of time and a good stop to allow Tara a bit of comfort space before we embarked, unfortunately the traffic was awful and we had several quite long delays,  As we were more and more delayed, we crept towards the Dundee rush hour and hit it perfectly which delayed us to the extent that we missed the earliest checkin time and were getting perilously close to the latest!  We therefore didn't have time for the comfort time nor did we have time for any photographs!

We drove more or less straight on to the ship, parked up and found our cabin.  Northlink Ferries have only just started doing pet-friendly cabins the alternative being kennel cages or stay in the car - neither of which would have worked for Tara.  We were pleased therefore that they'd done it because we wouldn't have gone otherwise.  In fact, the cabin was a standard one with a lino floor covering instead of carpet.  It worked really well, though.  The only tricky bit was that the "exercise area" was up some steep stairs which were OK when we were going up the coast but not as we crossed the rough bit and the ship was rocking.  Tara didn't like that ... she's not good with stairs at the best of times and certainly prefers each step to be where she last saw it.. Ian pretty much carried her down!  The other problem was getting her to wee onto steel decking when she prefers grass.  In the early hours, there were two groups of people sharing the small deck area - dogs owners and smokers and we're still not sure who was affronted more by the others' activities!

Anyway, it worked OK and we docked spot on time (7:00) in Lerwick.  To be greeted by pouring rain.  Ian took Tara for a wet walk round Lerwick, found an open cafe and therefore breakfast, and Tara enjoyed the sniffing ... and weeing on grass!

 

We had done a Tesco Click and Collect from the Lerwick store for our groceries, collected that and then meandered our way to Bardister which is situated at the north-west bit of the Shetland Mainland, just over Sullom Voe from the Oil Terminal. 

The map to the left shows where we were.  It was, shall we say, in the sticks.  We'd thought that Bardister would be a village with the croft as part of it ... but actually Bardister in one of four houses!  It was lovely

Here is the road that passed along the end of the driveway into the croft.  You can see that it was cold from what Lois and Tara are wearing!  More windy, really - Shetland is known for its wind which is why there are so few trees!  In the distance is Sullom Voe itself and the oil terminal just about visible.  There are more pictures later in the story since it makes a spectacular industrial view.

 

This is the croft.  Bedrooms were upstairs (Tara had her own bedroom!)   It was just lovely.  It was significantly smaller inside than outside because of the thickness of the walls, but that kept the wind out and the heat in, so we were very happy with it

 

 

And here is a happy and warm hound enjoying the fire!

Here are some pictures around the croft:

The next day we went for a bit of a drive around the north-easterly part of Shetland Mainland - a part we'd missed out during our last visit.  Here, we found some very pretty little places, including Collafirth Pier.  This was built in 1988 on the site of an old Norwegian whaling station and now home to one of Britain's largest fishing boats, the Altaire which must have been out when we visited. Smaller inshore boats work from Collafirth and these are evident in the pictures below.  It was clear that a good deal of money had been put into this little place, and it had been renovated thoughtfully.  We didn't think that they'd done it for the public - we went for a picnic lunch and were the only people there for the whole of our stay - but they clearly have a great little community here.

In the two lower photographs, you can see what looks like a ship's wheelhouse repurposed to serve as a sort of control booth, presumably for the control of the boats entering and leaving the pier area.  It was a lovely little place - it's so nice to see somewhere cared for and used for the enjoyment of a community.  We will come back here later during our stay.

 

We went west on our next day - pretty much as far as one can go!

Over there is Eshaness Lighthouse which is situated on the Northmavine peninsula.  It has an interesting shape - a tapering, square 12 metre high tower.  It was built by David Alan Stevenson (one of the famous 'lighthouse' Stevensons) between 1925 and 1929. It was built from concrete because of the unsuitability of local stone.  It flashes white every 12 seconds and has a nominal range of 25 nautical miles (46 km). The light was automated in 1974 and the former lighthouse keepers' accommodation is now holiday accommodation.

The lighthouse is only 12 metres high, but is perched on top of spectacular cliffs which give it the height it needs to shine 25 nautical miles out to sea!

Sullom Voe Terminal

Sullom Voe Oil Terminal has always been a bit of an obsession for Ian, ever since he read North Star by Hammond Innes - a novel set in and around Shetland.  The terminal itself hadn't been built at the time it was written, but the novel is all about an oil rig so the connection was made.  The local politics surrounding its location are interesting. When Shetland was identified as a location to provide pipeline terminal and support facilities for offshore oil installations in the northern North Sea, corporations involved had expected to each build their own terminal facilities. However, wishing to minimise the negative impacts of the industry, the Shetland Islands Council, with power granted to it by the UK Parliament in the 1974 Zetland County Council Act, was able to contain all pipeline terminal facilities at the Sullom Voe site.  The oil comes ashore via the pipelines connected to the platforms out in the oilfields, then it's collected by tankers from the holding tanks as it's needed.  The terminal was built between 1975 and 1981. 6,000 people were employed during construction, housed in temporary accommodation, including a former car ferry Rangatira.  The first oil was received on 25 November 1978 via the Brent pipeline and on 3 December, the first oil from the Ninian pipeline was received. 

The terminal makes a fantastic photographic study, especially at night.  Readers of our previous blog posts might remember that we'd tried to take photographs at the terminal itself but were asked by their security people not to, so we didn't publish them here ... however the following pictures were taken this year and from across the Voe so we didn't think they'd mind ...

 

Our next outing was down south, right to the southern tip of Shetland.  We'd been this way before, but had only stopped at Sumburgh Airport and the lighthouse at Sumburgh Head.  This time we did things a little better having carried out some research.  

Old Scatness is an archeological site on the Ness of Burgi in the south end of Mainland, Shetland, near Sumburgh Airport.  It consists of medieval, Viking, Pictish, and Iron Age remains having been a settlement for thousands of years, each new generation adding buildings, and leveling off old ones.  The site was first unearthed during construction work for airport improvements in the late 1970s. An arc of the broch wall was exposed in one side of a green mound during the building of the perimeter road at the airport at Sumburgh Head.  

When we got there, we were on our own - the hut was locked with a notice telling us to pay at the hotel nearby.  We tried but they had a fairly aggressive notice up saying that only booked guests were allowed in.  So we visited the site anyway!

 

St Ninian's Isle is a small island connected by the largest tombolo in the UK to the south-western coast of the Mainland. The tombolo, known locally as an ayre from the Old Norse for "gravel bank", is 500 metres long.  During the summer the tombolo is above sea level and accessible to walkers. During winter, stronger wave action removes sand from the beach so that it is usually covered at high tide, and occasionally throughout the tidal cycle, until the sand is returned the following spring. Depending on the definition used, St. Ninian's is thus ether an island, or a peninsula.  The island recently appeared on the latest series of BBC's "Shetland" drama.  We went to the spit itself, but didn't walk the full length of it to the island.  It's very odd walking along what is effectively a sandy beach but with water on both sides!

When we got back to the croft, an oil tanker sailed past having (presumably) collected a load of oil from the Sullom Voe Terminal.

The vessel is the "Sea Vine", a Crude Oil Tanker that was built in 2004 and is sailing under the flag of Marshall Islands (a group between Hawaii and The Philippines).  Her carrying capacity is 106021 tonnes.  Her length overall is 241 meters and her width is 42 meters.

You can just make out a tug "riding shotgun" for the tanker.  This was just in case she got into trouble with an engine failure or something like that.  Two tugs of the four stationed there are on continuous standby at the terminal.  This was the Tystie and the others are Dunter, Tirrick and Shalder. These are named after local seabirds found in Shetland.

The next day we decided we ought to go across to Yell ... because we could.  Yell is one of the Northern Isles, the others being Unst - even more north - and Fetlar - east of Yell.  Last time, we went all the way to Unst, but this time we opted just to nip across on foot to have a coffee.  Fetlar is for our next trip here.  Again, we were amazed by the efficiency of these little ferries!

On our way back, we returned to Collafirth (mentioned above) to try to capture the history of the place ... we found it intriguing.

And then it was time to go home!

We spent a lovely day finalising our packing and then having a good look round Lerwick before heading for the ship to cross back to Aberdeen.

Just two more photographs to share with you:

This is the three of us at Fort Charlotte, right in the centre of Lerwick.  It is an artillery fort, roughly five sided, with bastions on each of three landward corners, and half-bastions on the corners of the seaward face.  The middle is just grass.  

The final pic is not of the ferry - but of the Forth Bridges from the car.  We're on the new one, the old road bridge is next to us and the rail bridge is in the background.

And there you have it.  Shetland is a very special place.  The islands are sometimes culturally closer to Norway than Scotland, and many of the place names and architecture reflects this. They play fiddles and accordions rather than bagpipes. It's a wild, treeless landscape and cliffs surrounding countless blue seas and lochs.  Some say it has a spirituality about it ... and we agree.

It's already calling for us to return.