Shetland Autumn 2013

It's a pretty good bet that you won't get snow on Shetland in September or October, but anything else is highly likely.

You might well get gale- (and sometimes storm-) force winds that will attempt to blow you off the cliffs, in one direction or the other.  You might well get fog, which while it probably won't delay your flight to or from Shetland too much, it will wreak havoc with any plans you might have to get to Fair Isle. You might even get gale force fog, which at least means that you can't see the cliff edge as you get blown towards it.  You might well get big seas which will make the ferry crossing to Aberdeen very entertaining, and the wee boat to Fair Isle, at least two notches beyond entertaining.  You might get bright sunshine, still air and dramatic sunrises and sunsets.  And if you get lucky, clear overnight skies will coincide with a little bit of auroral activity and you'll get a glimpse of the Mirrie Dancers, the wonderful Shetland name for the Northern Lights, and even if the aurora doesn't play ball the dark skies might give you some dramatic starscapes.

I've spent the last three weeks in the house at the south end of Shetland, and have seen all the variants mentioned above.

Clear air across Quendale Bay - all the way to Fair Isle

Sunlit South End - Fitful Head from Compass Head

Eshaness - On a photograph, no one can tell how hard the wind was blowing.

Sunset over Quendale Bay

Victoria Pier Lerwick, boats in harbour ahead of the storms

Storm Surge at Sumburgh Head

Lost in the Mist, on Quendale Beach

Mirrie Dancers over Virkie

Star-struck in Shetland

The ever changing autumn weather (although on Shetland 'ever-changing' is a reasonable description of the weather at any time of year) also changes the wildlife that can be found. In the autumn Shetland draws in a huge variety of migrating birds some intending to spend time on Shetland, other blown there en route somewhere warmer.  The bushes and fields have been thick with unlikely birds over the last couple of weeks, and the roads have been choked with visiting bird-watchers all intent on adding another tick or two to their lifetime lists.

My own personal highlights (I don't really get that excited by seeing birds that have been blown to places that they shouldn't be visiting) was seeing huge number of porpoises in the bay in front of the house and seeing otters on a beach where I hadn't seen them before.

I suspect the porpoises are in the bay for a lot of the time, but with waves blowing through it can be pretty hard to spot them.  When the water is mirror-smooth they are easy to see - I counted about 40 in the bay one morning, and another more diligent observer got to  75.

Shetland has the highest density otter population in the UK, allegedly averaging one otter for each mile of coastline (and Shetland has a lot of miles of coastline) and that probably means that otters are visiting pretty much all of the coastline quite regularly.  I am always delighted when I spend time watching a beach where I've not seen an otter before, and I get rewarded by a new sighting.

Going Swiss

At the end of 2011 after the almost-endless long haul back from South Georgia, I couldn't face another many-hour flight so I planned a 'trains and boats' trip round northern Scandinavia.  After getting back from the Northwest Passage last month, which, despite being boat based, did involve over 10,000 air miles, I was delighted that the next trip was going to be entirely surface based (assuming that cable cars count as being surface based).

Our trip to Switzerland was organised by InnTravel in Yorkshire who describe themselves as 'The Slow Holiday People'.  The itinerary wasn't by any stretch of the imagination, original. In fact the itinerary was based on one first put together by Thomas Cook in 1863. It’s quite possible that the details of that trip would have been lost had the entire journey not been documented by Jemina Morrell, one of the original Cook’s tourists.

So following in Jemina's footsteps we headed to London to start out on our Swiss Adventure.

Mr Cook’s party (an unbelievable 130-strong) set off from London Bridge Station on Friday 26th June 1863. We (a party of two!) set off from St Pancras International on Friday 6th September 2013.  The 1863 journey travelled by train to Newhaven, steamer to Dieppe, then train to Paris (and had a very short overnight stop there) before another very early start so that they would reach Geneva (again by train) by the Saturday night.  Thanks to Eurostar, the Channel Tunnel and the French TGV network – we were able to be in Paris just after 10 on the Friday morning, in Geneva by mid-afternoon, and in our first Alpine hotel in the spa town of Leukerbad for dinner on the Friday evening.

Leukerbad - in the morning sunshine

The 1863 tour (or at least the part of the group that Jemina M was with) went from Geneva off to Chamonix for a few days before arriving in Leukerbad.  Leukerbad was already well established as a spa town long before it made Thomas Cook's itinerary and Jemina does comment not entirely favourably on activities she observed in the baths including knitting, eating and playing of draughts. Jemina doesn't admit to having actually spent any time taking the waters, we however did, and spent a very pleasant couple of hours in the 50C waters in an outside pool watching the sun disappear off the mountain tops.

From Leukerbad, both our and the earlier tour followed the same itinerary over the Gemmi Pass to Kandersteg.  We despatched our luggage via the Swiss Transport System for delivery to Kandersteg, and then headed for the Gemmi Cable car to whisk us up almost 1000 metres to top of the pass.  Thick mists ensured we could see almost nothing, but just occasionally we got a glimpse of the steep path (“vertiginous” is a word that keeps coming to the fore here) that Jemina and her party (with their luggage presumably, although that doesn't often get mentioned in the diary) must have scrambled up.  We (and Jemina, having recovered from her climb) then walked past the Daubensee and to the remote mountain hotel at Schwarenbach.  In July 1863, the party were able to enthuse about the views, and the spring flowers under a ‘broiling sun’. In September 2013 we saw very little other than brief glimpses of what Jemina called ‘the dreary Daubensee’, and our first sight of the Schwarenbach Hotel was when we were only a few metres from it.  From the hotel we took the option of heading towards another cable car station to be whisked down to the outskirts of Kandersteg.  Jemina and companions again needed to scramble down another steep path until they reached ‘the first habitation’ where they spent the night.

Daubensee in the mist

We spent three nights in Kandersteg before again following Jemina down the valley towards Lake Thun. On this occasion, at least, Mr Cook had arranged carriages to get his party to Spiez to catch the steamer along Lake Thun to Interlaken.  We followed the same route, but used the ever punctual Swiss Railway service to get to Spiez to join the steamer.   It takes a couple of days to really absorb the slogan printed on the back of our Swiss Travel passes, “Imagine a country where public transport is always on time”. It’s true. And the buses connect with the trains.  And the trains connect with the boats.

Lake Thun ferry in Interlaken

From Interlaken, both tours headed to Lauterbrunnen to have a look at the Staubbach Falls, where water tumbles 1000 feet from a hanging valley down to the main valley below.   We then continued on from Lauterbrunnen catching yet another punctual cog-rail train to climb slowly up to Wengen, while Jemina retraced her steps to spend some more time in Interlaken.

Underneath the Staubbach Falls

For both tours the next stage was to Grindelwald.  We got there by a slightly circuitous route splitting the climb from Wengen up to Kleine Scheidegg and the descent down to Grindelwald over two days. The huge number and choice of cable cars and mountain railways in this part of Switzerland makes it very easy to flex walks according to the weather and the state of grumbling knees.  I decided, on this trip, to forego my traditional travel souvenir of a local T-shirt, and to buy a souvenir walking stick instead.  Jemima didn't have the cable car or mountain railway option, and her party had to complete the descent into Grindelwald “after the manner of the goats, leaping rents, and clearing the ground at a furious speed”.  We did not.

Trains and hotels at Kleine Scheidegg

For the final stop of the trip we again followed in Jemima’s footsteps heading back to Interlaken to catch the steamer towards Brienz with a stop at Giessbach to admire the Giessbach Falls, en route to Lucerne.  In 1863 the journey from Brienz to Lucerne involved coach and horses and a crossing of the Brunig Pass.  The route still involves crossing the Brunig Pass, but now it done in a very calm and controlled manner courtesy of Swiss Railways.

And from Lucerne it was, for both parties, a simple journey back towards Paris, although in our case it took about 4 hours rather than two days.

Logistics

2013.  Trip was organised by InnTravel, and included stays at Parkhotel Quellenhof (Leukerbad), Belle Epoque Hotel Victoria (Kandersteg), Hotel Alpenrose (Wengen), Hotel Kruez and Post (Grindelwald) and Hotel Wilden Mann (Lucerne).  Travel involved Eurostar, TGV, Swiss Travel System Flexi Passes and walking.  Our luggage transfers  (which all worked perfectly) were also handled by the Swiss Transport System.

1863. Trip was organised by Thomas Cook, and included stays at Hotel des Freres Brunuer (Leukerbad), Hotel de l’Ours (Kandersteg), Hotel du Lac (Interlaken), Adler (Grindelwald) and a chalet in the grounds of the Giessbach Hotel.  Travel involved all manner of trains, boats, carriages and time on foot. Luggage transfers appear to have been handled by mule.

Thomas Cook charged just under £20 for Jemima’s trip, and my ready-reckoner suggests that this is equivalent to about £2000 in 2013, which is pretty close to what we paid for our trip.

Reliving the 19th Century?

Having just about had time to browse my images from the Northwest Passage and reformat my memory cards, it's time to pack up and escape the country again. This time replaying another 19th Century journey.

The Northwest Passage trip provided the chance to get a glimpse of some of the places visited by a number of early Arctic explorers, and most particularly to visit some of bleak and desolate islands that Sir John Franklin and his fellow travellers saw on their fateful expedition in 1846.  

Graves from Franklin expedition on Beechey Island

Visiting some of these islands from the comfort of a well-appointed expedition cruise ship really brought home the challenges that these explorers faced.  They were seeking to find routes through a maze of islands surrounded at best by drifting sea ice and at worst by wild Arctic storms.  They were trying to find their way through uncharted waters, where one of their few modern instruments was, in modern terminology 'useless'. 

Magnetic Compass Useless

To supplement paper charts we not only had radar to help spot icebergs and GPS to confirm where we were, we also had daily ice charts to help us understand what the ice conditions were.  And when the going got tough we were able to call on the Canadian Coastguard, in the shape of Captain Frost and the CCGS Henry Larsen, to clear the way for us.

CCGS Henry Larsen

There are further images from the trip on Flickr, and if you want to follow my journey day-by-day, my photodiary on Blipfoto starts here.

Franklin, and Roald Amundsen who eventually did sail the Passage in the early years of the 20th Century, would have been astonished both at the technology at our disposal, and perhaps even more surprised to find that in the early part of the 21st Century the Northwest Passage is now on the tourist circuit.

Organised tourism, in Franklin's time, was just starting to develop.  Individual travellers had for many years made journeys or pilgrimages, and the Grand Tour had become a regular rite of passage for affluent young men.  In the middle of the 19th Century, Thomas Cook started for the first time to organise trips around the UK.  In 1863, after a number of successfully tours to Paris, he decided to branch out and offered his first international tour to Switzerland.  One of the travellers on the first Swiss tour was Jemina Morrell, a woman from the north of England who in addition to being an intrepid traveller was also a dedicated diarist.  She wrote, and subsequently published, a detailed account of her travels through the Bernese Oberland.

Over the next couple of weeks I'll be repeating Jemima's tour, going to Geneva and Leukerbad by train and bus, before travelling on by cable car, train, boat and foot to wind up in Lucerne.  I'll be travelling to several of the towns that Jemima visited as she covered long distances mostly on foot.

I would love to be able to say that this tour is still being offered by Thomas Cook, but it isn't . Our itinerary has been put together by InnTravel.  

In the 1860s this trip was state of the art, modern tourism. In 2013, InnTravel distinguish themselves from other travel companies by the tag-line the 'Slow Holiday People'.  I wonder if there will be mules available for hire if the going gets too slow.

Heading to Greenland

Over the last few years I've made a number of trips to the Far North and Far South – penguin spotting in Antarctica and South Georgia, searching for polar bears around Svalbard and taking more pictures than is sensible of the wildlife in the Falklands, and of the scenery and the icebergs in Norway and in eastern Greenland respectively

When I talk about the travelling north, once the “Have you been to the North Pole?” question gets out of the way and the “Are polar bears really dangerous?” query, (answers no and yes in that order), the next set of questions are often about the Northwest Passage. 

Pretty much everyone has heard of the Northwest Passage, even if the grasp of exactly where it is and why it might matter are a bit vague.

To date, I've had to answer “not yet” when asked about travelling the Northwest Passage.

Tomorrow I fly west to Ottawa, then to Greenland, to travel through the Northwest Passage.  I join my boat at one of the few places in Greenland with a full-sized airstrip.  The airstrip at Kangerlussuaq (also known as Sondrestrom or, at one time, Bluie West-8) was primarily built by the US military as part of the DEW (distant early warning) Line in the 1950s.  It’s now Greenland’s main transport hub, allowing visitors to fly in from Europe or North America before joining expedition boats moored in Kangerlussuaq Fjord.  Pretty much everywhere in Greenland – and indeed along the Northwest Passage  - seems to have multiple names reflecting local traditions, visiting explorers or their sponsors egos or military presence.

Once I join my boat (leaving a former US air base to board a Russian-flagged former hydrological research ship) I’ll travel down the fjord to the coast, then turn north, recrossing the Arctic Circle and heading to the Disko Bay area, then across Baffin Bay.

After that the planned itinerary (as always on these sort of trips, subject to change) takes us to Pond Inlet, and to Devon and Beechey Islands, then southwards into Prince Regent Inlet and through Bellot Sound and down Franklin and Victoria Straits.  The final stop is at Cambridge Bay on the southern edge of Victoria Island.  This route isn’t too different to the one that Amundsen followed when he first sailed the Northwest Passage between 1903 and 1907.  From Cambridge Bay, Amundsen carried on west along the Canadian coastline, but I get to fly south to Edmonton to complete the trip by flying back to Heathrow.  Amundsen took best part of four years to complete the passage, I'm only planning to spend a couple of weeks doing my bit of it.

I'm doing this trip on the Akademic Ioffe with One OceanExpeditions. The other travel arrangements have been sorted out by SteppesTravel in Cirencester.

I expect to have limited internet access over the next couple of weeks – pictures and words to follow later in the month.

Never Go Back?

I read a blog post recently which posed the question "Do you ever return to a destination?", and it started me thinking about places I've been to more than once, and my motivation for going back.

I've got a pretty poor record on this.  I am regularly heard to say "I'll definitely be back" at the end of a visit, but rarely make good on the pledge.

If I'm going to try and rationalise what I do, it's probably along the lines that if I haven't particularly enjoyed a place, why would I go back, and if I have really enjoyed a place I worry that a second visit won't be as good, and will somehow 'cancel out' the memories of the first visit.  If I do somehow manage to visit a place twice, there is a pretty good chance I'll revisit several times.

So where have I been more than once, a few places come to mind, and why.

North Devon (loads of visits)  

The visits here started as a family visits to an elderly relative of my wife's, but subsequently they turned into regular tourist visits, usually to the same seafront hotel. For us this is a comfortable relaxing part of the country, it's not too far away, and there isn't any thinking required once we get there, so it's ideal 'switch off' territory.

North Devon, 2013

Shetland (loads of visits)  

Our first visit to Shetland was in the depths of winter to see the Up Helly Aa fire festival, and the next visit was only six months later to see what the place was like in daylight, and since then we've spent lots of time on the Islands.  This is my classic example of the dangers of revisiting somewhere lots of times, you eventually decide that it doesn't make sense to keep booking hotels and cottages and you need to find a house there to feed the visit habit. 

Shetland, 2007

Falkland Islands (twice, so far)  

This is the only really long haul place I've been back to.  This was one place where I really needed to grit my teeth (metaphorically at least) and rebook a trip to somewhere I'd really enjoyed visiting. I did choose a different travel route for the second visit (which wasn't as good!), and visited a mix of places, some new for the second visit others revisits (some being even better the second time round).  And I really do want to visit again!

Falkland Islands, 2009

Florence (three or four times, I think)  

Have been here several times, and got lazier and lazier on each visit. On the first visit we climbed every tower we could, visited every cathedral and toured every gallery. On the most recent visit we sat in cafes over-looking piazzas and the river, and watched other tourists hurrying around. Once we'd done the important sites, we had permission just to sit and watch, and enjoy being in one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

Florence, 2004

Alderney (twice, so far)

We've been to Alderney twice, and we've got a third visit planned, but not yet booked.  We first visited in 1994, and at that time the place seemed like it was still operating in the 1950s, albeit it with an huge number of pubs and restaurants.  Our second visit was in 2009, we flew in on the same airline and stayed in the same hotel (The Bellevue) which was still being run by the same people. The entire island seemed to have changed very little, and we again had a wonderfully relaxing time. One of the things we reflected on was how much, unlike the island, we'd changed in the 15 years since the first visit.  And we committed to returning to Alderney again in another fifteen years, in 2024, to see firstly how much the island has changed, and secondly how much we've changed. I wonder if the Bellevue will still be there?

Alderney. 2009

And my next return visit? 

I last went walking in the Swiss Alps in summer 1981, and I'll be going back there to walk in and around Wengen and Grindelwald later this summer. I'm guessing that the mountains won't have changed much, but this time I'll be staying in hotels rather than on campsites.

An Unscheduled Run

A tweet today from @Dawadderman on Fair Isle made me think back to my first visit to Fair Isle in Summer 2007.

I've been on an unscheduled run.

We had spent a few beautiful days exploring the Shetland mainland, but then the traditional summer fog had descended and hung ominously around the top of the fence posts across the island.  As we drove up to the little airstrip at Tingwall, we could see very little except for the curlews standing as sentries on the posts on each side of the road.   At the airport, were lots of people keen to get to Fair Isle on the wee plane.  Some had been waiting for several days for the fog to lift far enough to let the pilot see the distant end of the runway. 

We were taken aside by the woman behind the desk.  "Don't think this is going to happen today, some of these folks have been here for ages.  You might as well go back into town." We did.  About an hour later, we got the call. "Can you get down to Grutness? There'll be a boat in about an hour. You're on the list. Don't tell anyone else." 

We followed orders, although it seemed more like a Le Carre plot than a travel plan.

On the pier at Grutness were 10 other people, mostly essential travellers like nurses and light-house-fixers, and us.  We all peered off the end of the pier into the fog.  Eventually The Good Shepherd IV emerged and a dozen school aged children jumped off and headed for the bus that had miraculously appeared behind us on the pier.  Maybe the plot was Sound of Music rather than The Spy who Came in from the Cold. 

Leaving Grutness

We replaced the children on the boat and chugged off into the thick mist, rolling our way across the ever-churning patch of water just south of the Shetland mainland.  No one could see anything other than the mist and the rolling water surface.  Every now and again one of the the crew would, slightly worryingly, wander to the front of the bridge, and stare intently at what passed for a horizon.  And after a few minutes shake his head and sit down again.  Eventually the head shaking stopped and we could see that we were already close to the entrance to the Fair Isle Harbour.

As he gratefully scrambled down the gangway, one of the light-house-fixers muttered. "Don't care how long it takes. I'm staying here until the planes are going again".  When it was our turn to get off one of the crew shouted to us.  "Don't go too far, I'll give you a lift.  The Obs is still full, you'll be staying with us tonight."

European Bee Eater - occasional Fair Isle visitor

And as we reached the croft where we were staying, the fog, right on cue, lifted away.  A few minutes later as we set off for our first look at Fair Isle, we were greeted by the not-so-traditional Fair Isle cry of "Have you see the bee-eater yet?".

We weren't the only ones on an unscheduled run.

Retail Therapy

A number of people have asked where or how they can get prints of some of the photographs I've posted here and on Blipfoto or on Flickr.

I now have a limited number of my images available via a Photobox Gallery.

There are four collections currently available in the Gallery.

• North Collection - images from inside the Arctic Circle

• South Collection - images from inside the Antarctic Convergence

• Shetland Collection - images from around the Shetland Islands

• Black Ice Collection - a experimental set of black and white images from both North and South

At the moment, I'm making a series of prints available in various sizes ranging from 4x6 inches up to 12x18 inches, there will be ready-to-hang images (framed prints, canvas prints and, I hope, aluminium prints) in due course.

If there are images on this site or elsewhere that you would like as a print, do get in touch via ross@rossmackenziephotography.co.uk

Historical Sites on Shetland

I'm doing a Google MOOC about the mapping tools they provide - this map (which is for one of the assignments) shows a number of historical sites at the south end of the Shetland Mainland.

The mapping tools are very good - but the embed function doesn't appear to let me control where the map is centred (so it's under the info box - just drag the map to the right....)

And the embed stuff renders very strangely on a iPad too, not sure who's 'problem' this is.


This is what I'm trying to get the initial image to look like.

Shipping Forecasts

When I get up to Shetland my regular online information sources change.

Shipping Forecast - no gales around Fair Isle today

Down in the south - and far inland - I’m likely to check various news websites and twitter on a pretty regular basis to keep in touch with what’s going on.

Up here, being right on the edge of the sea, there are two other websites that I pay much more attention to - both related to shipping.

The Met Office Shipping Forecast becomes a very regular source of information.  The standard weather forecast doesn't really cut it at the south end Shetland.  Suddenly it matters what's happening in sea area "Fair Isle".  I don’t know if other countries have institutions like the Shipping Forecast that still interrupt the broadcast of major sporting events (on the radio at least) - but it's a fantastic service!

Another Shipping Forecast - showing the passing ships

The other website that I look at very regularly is the ever amazing Marine Traffic site – this plots the current position of shipping pretty much anywhere in the world.  

I use this to identify what I can see going past the south end of Shetland, and as a way of finding out if there is anything interesting in the area that’s worth looking out for.  

I think I’m revealing myself as a bit of a closet ship-spotter.

Getting to Shetland

Orkney and Shetland

For many people, Shetland is just a bleak remote place in the far North.  

There is a lot of confusion about where it is, not helped by the media habit of leaving it off UK maps.  Even amongst those who can confidently point to it on a map without getting it mixed up with Orkney or the Faroe Islands there is real bewilderment about how to go about getting there.

Let's start with where Shetland is.  The Shetland Islands are the northern-most group of islands in the British Isles - the main town is Lerwick.  South of the Shetland mainland is Fair Isle - still one of the Shetland Islands, and further south of that are the Orkney Islands (biggest town, Kirkwall).  And South again you get to the Scottish mainland,

So how might you reach this isolated little group of islands?  There are two options for crossing the water, by plane or by boat.

Loganair Saab 340 arriving at Sumburgh

The flying option relies on Loganair - which labels itself as Scotland's Airline.  The planes are painted in Flybe colours, and although tickets are generally sold by Flybe, you can via the miracle of code-sharing also book tickets through British Airways.  This makes it possible to fly from pretty much any airport in the UK, changing onto a Flybe / Loganair plane at Glasgow, Edinburgh or Aberdeen.  The final flight into Sumburgh, the main Shetland airport, will be on a twin-propellor Saab 340, and it you're lucky you'll get a great view of Fair Isle as you start the approach into Sumburgh. There are a couple of other airfields on mainland Shetland.  There is a full-sized airstrip at Scatsta which takes some of the oil industry charter flights, and a little airstrip at Tingwall which is used for the inter-island flights on even smaller planes that the Loganair Saabs.

Northlink Hamnavoe arriving into Stromness, Orkney

If you don't fancy flying, or you want to bring your own transport, there is currently only one ferry route you can take.  Northlink Ferries run a service from Aberdeen up to Lerwick every night of the week, with a stop-off in Kirkwall every other night.  The direct crossing takes about 12 hours, and if there is a stop in Kirkwall it adds a couple of extra hours to the journey time.  The two boats that operate the service are the Hjaltland and the Hrossey, each carrying up to 140 cars and 600 passengers.

And, if you don't want a 12 or 14 hour crossing, you can reduce the sailing time a little bit, by crossing first to Orkney before picking up the Northlink boat just outside Kirkwall.  There are two options for getting to Orkney with a car - from Scrabster to Stromness (operated by Northlink Ferries, using the Hamnavoe) or from Gills Bay in to St Margaret's Hope on South Ronaldsay (operated by Pentland Ferries).  The sailing time from Orkney to Shetland is about 7 hours.

What if you want to come from, or from the Shetland perspective go to, somewhere other than mainland Scotland?  In the summer there are occasional Flybe flights from Sumburgh to Bergen in Norway, but other than that you are out of luck.  In recent years there have been direct flights to both London and to the Faroe Islands, operated by Atlantic Airways (the Faroe national airline) but these aren't running at the moment. 

Norrona passing Sumburgh Head

Similarly, there used to be regular ferry services to the Faroe Islands, Iceland and Denmark, but these stopped a few years ago. These were sufficiently important to Shetland that the Council helped buy, and still part owns, the boat that was used on these services. It is slightly frustrating that the Norrona still occasionally passes close enough to Shetland to be seen from the lighthouse at Sumburgh Head.

Now that you know where Shetland is, and how to get here - the Visit Shetland website has lots of suggestions about what you might do once you get here.

Links

Loganair  http://www.loganair.co.uk/

Flybe http://www.flybe.com/

British Airways http://www.britishairways.com

Northlink Ferries http://www.northlinkferries.co.uk/

Pentland Ferries http://www.pentlandferries.co.uk/

Visit Shetland http://visit.shetland.org/

The Alternative Route to Shetland. June 2013

I've driven and ferried to Shetland lots of times over the last five years but every time have taken essentially the same route, up the motorways to the Central Belt then over to Aberdeen and the overnight boat to Lerwick.

This time it was a bit different. 

From the Central Belt I carried on up the A9 pretty much as far as it goes. This is one of my favourite drives (another favourite is the M74 from the Borders up to Glasgow – this trip let me do both).  It gave me the chance to have a look at the Cairngorms in summer, and to stay on what was in my childhood called the Aviemore Centre.  Most of the hotels are refurbished versions of the ones that I remember from the 1970s and 80s, but other facilities have all changed.  The swimming pool has been demolished and replaced, and the ice rink has just been demolished.

Used to be the Aviemore Posthouse, now the Highlands Hotel

The last time I visited the ice rink was with a gang of Bristol electron microscopists in 1985 – and my strongest memory is of the local police trying to break up fights on the ice between the players.  It was rather an unfair conflict, the players had skates and sticks, the constabulary’s finest just had big boots. 

I also got to revisit the Happy Haggis, a very fine fish and chip shop at the south end of Aviemore village. I had only ever been there once before, when my brother and I took shelter while my father was driving up and down the road to Cairngorm looking for us.  He was trying to decide whether to declare us missing in the mountains and call out the local Mountain Rescue. We were trying to decide whether to have salt and vinegar. I can’t remember how the incident got resolved, but I'm sure I got into trouble!

The Happy Haggis, Aviemore

North of Aviemore the A9 carries on up to Inverness and along the east coast crossing the Moray,  Cromarty and Dornoch Firths.  My Mackenzie pedigree goes back to the town of Tain just south of the Dornoch Firth – I didn’t stop there this time.

Crossing the Dornoch Firth

Further north the A9 eventually reaches Thurso and Scrabster, I turned off at the village of Helmsdale to see some of the more remote bits of Caithness.  The only time I've seen this bit of Scotland before was in 1989 when I toured using a ScotRail pass. The rail line from Inverness was one of the ones targeted by Beeching, but fortunately was saved to continue to offer a fantastic way to visit this part of the country.

 

Forsinard Station - the station buildings are now the RSPB Visitor Centre. (There are two tracks here - this is one of the few places where north-bound and south-bound trains can pass each other).

My target here was the RSPB Reserve at Forsinard Flows, one of the places where the single track road and the single track railway meet. This is a really beautiful and bleak site that is slowly being allowed to recover to its original state.  I got a guided tour of the reserve which ensured I saw much more than I would have done under my own steam.

The Flow Country - RSPB Forsinard Flows

I rejoined the A9 for a final few miles at Thurso to get to Scrabster for the ferry to Orkney.  There are several ferry routes to Orkney, the Scrabster to Stromness route goes past the island of Hoy and the amazing Old Man of Hoy sea stack.  I’ve wanted to see this stack for as long as I can remember – I can still recall watching it being climbed live on television in the 1960s.

The Old Man of Hoy

On Orkney I had a couple of days before getting the ferry north to Shetland.  I split my time between exploring the cliffs and historical sites (and sights) on western side of the Orkney mainland, and the islands on the southeast side of the group.

In the west I saw the Ring of Brodgar (about 4500 years old), and the Kitchener Memorial on Marwick Head (almost 100 years old).  

The Ring of Brodgar

The museum in Stromness is fascinating.  There's a huge Victorian-era collection of stuffed birds, and lots of artefacts about the town and the sinking of the German Fleet in Scapa Flow.  My reason for visiting was to learn more about John Rae. Rae was born in Orphir, a little further along Scapa Flow from Stromness, and became one of the most successful of the 19^th Century Arctic explorers.  He was a surgeon with the Hudson’s Bay Company, and mapped huge areas of the Northwest Passage.  He was also the person who found out what happened to Franklin's earlier Northwest Passage expedition.  Rae found evidence of cannibalism in the Franklin remnants, and realising that this wouldn't be well received by the authorities kept this gruesome details to a confidential report to the Admiralty. The Admiralty released the report – and Rae got the blame.  He was the only British 'Heroic Age' polar explorer not to wind up with a knighthood – but he did at least get a Gold Medal from the Royal Geographical Society.

The islands at the eastern side of Scapa Flow were once real islands.  In the early days of the Second World War the channels between the islands were exploited by an audacious U-boat commander.  After the sinking of HMS Royal Oak while at anchor in Scapa Flow in 1939, Churchill ordered that the channels be permanently blocked – a huge construction project followed linking up all the islands on the east side of the Flow.  These barriers, now referred to as the Churchill Barriers, were completed during the war and eventually had roads constructed on them providing access right down to the island of South Ronaldsay, at its southern tip only 6 or 7 miles from the Scottish Mainland.

A Churchill Barrier - and remains of a 'temporary' block-ship

My final stop in Orkney was back in Kirkwall – where I caught up with the ferry from Aberdeen as it stops en-route to Shetland. This route up to Shetland certainly isn't the quickest one, but it does provide (in the summer at least) lots of things to do and see.  I will certainly use it again when I've got time to spare.

St Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall

North Devon, June 2013

When you book a weekend at the seaside in the UK, weather is always going to be a bit of a lottery.

We’ve been to North Devon lots of times in spring and autumn, as well as in the summer months, and we’ve walked bits of the coast path there in rain, fog, hail and even, on occasion, in sunshine, but this time we really got lucky with the weather.

Watersmeet Hotel, Woolacombe

We spent the first few days of June 2013 staying at the Watersmeet Hotel on the North Devon coast just outside Woolacombe.  This hotel was built as a private hotel in 1907 and sits between the Woolacombe to Mortehoe road and the sea, just where the road twists round past Combesgate Valley.  The hotel is a long narrow building making the most of its location, with every room having a sea view, and lots also having balconies looking out on Combesgate Beach.  At one time the hotel had lots of small rooms but over the years these have been merged to leave the hotel with fewer bigger rooms.  The various renovations have also added two swimming pools (one inside and one outside) and a dramatic terraced dining room on the west end of the building looking straight out to sea.  If you get the timing right (and the weather co-operates) you get a wonderful sunset just as your dessert is arriving.

Watersmeet Hotel from Combesgate Beach

We’ve stayed as the Watersmeet several times over the past 10 or 12 years, and it definitely falls into the ‘occasional treat’ category.

The South West Coast Path goes past just behind the hotel, and the obvious thing to do with a two day stay at the Watersmeet is to walk southwards towards Baggy Point one day, and northwards towards Morte Point on the other.

Woolacombe Sand from Putsborough

The southwards walk takes you past Combesgate and Barricane beaches on the way to the two-mile-long Woolacombe Sand.  Once you reach the far end, the beach becomes Putsborough Sand, and from there the path climbs up onto Baggy Point, and if you’re feeling energetic eventually follows round into Croyde Bay and to Saunton Sands.  If you feel the urge to turn the walk into a circular one, you can follow an inland route back from Putsborough to Woolacombe.

Putsborough Sand from Baggy Point

The northward walk to Morte Point is rather shorter.  From the hotel it climbs up around the top of Grunta Beach and out onto Morte Point.  The churning waters just off the Point provide a reminder that these waters aren’t great places to take a boat, and the name rightly indicates that many seafarers over the years haven’t given the Point a wide enough berth.

Combesgate Beach with Baggy Point in the distance as you climb up towards Morte Point

Grunta Beach and Morte Point

And if Morte Point isn't far enough, the path carries on round to Bull Point, and from there onwards and eastwards to Ilfracombe.

Bull Point and Rockham Bay from Morte Point

If you’re looking for somewhere on the Coast Path in North Devon, where you’ll be well-looked after and well-fed the Watersmeet is definitely worth your attention.

And if you get really lucky you’ll get blue skies and warm gentle winds too. These images and others are on my Flickr site.

The Watersmeet Hotel website is at www.watersmeethotel.co.uk