My last trip north, for a quick walk up the Lairig Ghru, was almost exactly 60 hours from leaving the house in Oxford to parking the car back there again. I thought this trip needed to be a bit longer. It was. 90 hours in total.
That was just enough time to fly up to Shetland seeing the delights of four airports on the way north (Gatwick, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Sumburgh - a convoluted journey involving being driven in a limo between Glasgow and Edinburgh Airports), to walk on several of the beaches at the south end of Shetland, eat marginally too much chocolate to mark the end of Lent and to fly back to southern England (by a slightly less circuitous route).
 |
| EDI - airport 3 of 4 |
 |
| Quendale Surf |
 |
| Quendale Beach Ball |
 |
| The Crowds |
Spring appears to be arriving late on Shetland this year - there are a few of the regular cliff-nesting birds around, the fulmar are always early to claim their spots, but the big numbers of puffins, guillemots and razorbills aren't yet in residence. The next couple of weeks should see that remedied.
Shetland might not have been quite basking in the temperatures that places further south were seeing, but the winds were remarkably light and there were even points where it seemed safe to shed ones woolly hat - and most importantly of all the Fair Isle test was passed.
 |
| Fair Isle on the horizon |
Next trip north will be longer!
There are a few other pictures from this visit on Flickr.
No comments:
Post a Comment