Hello, from Shetland

When you imagine Scotland, you think of quiet glens, river valleys, forests, gorges, lochs, and whisky that flows like water from tumbling burns. This is Moray Speyside; it’s a romantic image punctuated with visions of tartan-clad highlanders, heather, and ‘wild haggis’. It is liberally peppered with at least 50 malt whisky distilleries, making it one of the best-known regions, if less explored.

But we were here for more than just the uisge beatha, or ‘water of life’. Speyside is bursting with family-friendly activities and a drop or three of the strong stuff. This blog will show how you, too, can enjoy a family-friendly escape in Scotland’s whisky capital.

The Shetland Isles, a remote and captivating archipelago located in the North Sea, are a hidden gem waiting to be explored. If you're an avid caravanner looking for a unique adventure, taking your caravan to Shetland is a fantastic idea. With stunning landscapes, rich history, and warm hospitality, Shetland offers a one-of-a-kind experience that you'll cherish forever. In this blog post, we'll guide you through the essential tips for taking your caravan to Shetland, including places to pitch, and highlight some must-visit destinations on the islands.

Brydon Thomason is a Fetlar-born Shetland naturalist who has spent decades in Shetland’s landscapes, photographing and observing the incredible wildlife of our islands. Brydon is also the owner of Shetland Nature, who run wildlife holidays and guided tours throughout Shetland, and this latest book showcases his incredible archive of photographs, along with his insights into the seasons which, as they change, bring different wildlife experiences with them.

The book itself is a work of art, featuring 80 species illustrated through 179 images across 286 pages and opening with an incredible double-page spread of a raft of eider ducks, commonly seen throughout the winter months around Shetland waters. The captivating photographs are brought to life with Brydon’s words that take the reader on a journey through Shetland’s seasonal wildlife highlights.

Lying about 20 miles west of Shetland, Foula is one of the UK’s most remote islands, and arguably the most isolated of any island in the UK. With a population of about 35, many thousands of birds, and five square miles to explore, Foula has an ‘edge of the world’ feel and will leave a lasting impression on those who visit.

Sitting alone in the vast, often unforgiving expanse of the North Atlantic, Foula looms from the horizon and is visible on a clear day from most parts of Shetland’s west coast. Its looming silhouette represents the last outpost of the UK, a final frontier. Echoing noisily with the sound of hundreds of thousands of seabirds in summer, and hard to access in winter as its name suggests – the word Foula comes from the Old Norse Fugley, meaning ‘bird island.’

Orkney is a special island to Shetlanders; we share a ferry, an unreliable airline, Scandinavian ties and a friendly rivalry, which is amplified every time our football teams meet on the pitch.

Orkney, with a population of around 22,000, has about 70 islands, with 20 inhabited. Mainland Orkney can get busy during the high season, particularly on days when cruise liners visit, so it’s always worth considering an island trip. I’ve already written about our time in Westray, and in this blog, we explore Hoy.

With Hallowe’en upon us, I wanted to take a look at some of the spine-tingling and tragic tales from Lerwick. Last year, I explored Shetland’s haunted places, and this year, I wanted to focus on our capital town, Lerwick. Lerwick grew from the 1600s with Dutch fishermen coming here every summer to begin their summer herring fishery. The first mention of Lerwick came in 1625 when the lawmakers in Scalloway expressed concern about the lawlessness displayed in Lerwick, where smuggling, drinking, theft, assault and prostitution were cited as grounds to raze Lerwick to the ground.

When I first announced on social media that I was visiting Faroe, I was met with the usual ill-informed judgement that so often blights this proud nation, which today is an independent territory belonging to Denmark. This is something I’d like to clear up at the outset before I dive into a blog about our time in the islands. I have based this response around a particularly vitriolic email I received and, to prevent any further ill-informed comments, I’ve embedded that response into my website, here, and invite you to read this before forming judgement based on propaganda.

Faroe sits at 62° north, halfway between Shetland and Iceland. Like Shetland, it’s an island archipelago comprising 18 significant islands and many smaller islands, rocks and skerries. Where relatively low-lying hills form Shetland, the terrain of Faroe is mountainous, imposing and almost impossible to farm. It’s a rugged country where communities are strung out along the shoreline at the head of deep fjords or bays, many of which are connected today by tunnels, forging routes through mountains and undersea. Yet, despite its harsh landscape and climate, the islands are home to a thriving community of around 54,000 people – almost twice the population of Shetland living in a similar-sized island group.

As I write this, we are in the throes of the 14th Shetland Wool Week festival, which sees the arrival of knitters from all over the world in the islands to take part in the week-long celebration of Shetland’s textile heritage.

Wool Week is a hugely popular festival and marks the end of the busy summer season here in Shetland, and with this popularity comes high demand for accommodation, tickets and transport.

This blog is aimed at those planning to visit for Wool Week and how best to do this without too much stress!

I adore islands and love nothing more than exploring new ones I’ve never experienced before. I love the process, the planning and poring over ferry timetables, checking weather updates and discovering what makes each island unique and special.

In June, we visited Mull, an ideal springboard for exploring several other islands in the region, including Iona, Ulva and the Treshnish Isles.

I hate the term’ island hopping’; it conjures up images of mindlessly ticking islands from a list in a cavalier-style bid to ‘see them all’. In a way, this is what we were doing, but I hope that this blog will provide a glimpse into what each of these islands is like, what makes them unique and why you should make an effort to visit and explore some of Scotland’s smaller islands in a more immersive way.

I’m an island lass at heart. Islands run through my veins, and we were lucky enough to get the opportunity to spend some time exploring Mull recently. Islands provide an anchor to which I always return; they feel familiar and restorative – like home. The ever-present sea offers security and constancy in a fast-paced world. Islands allow me to slow down and breathe.

We spent our week with Mull Holiday Cottages, our trip coinciding with some of the best summer weather so far. Under the blue skies and turquoise waters of Mull, I was keen to explore these Inner Hebridean islands.

A mile offshore from Sandness, accessible several times a week by ferry from West Burrafirth, is Papa Stour, known locally as Papa. The name comes from the Old Norse language, meaning ‘the great island of the priests’. The island is geologically fascinating, formed from volcanic ash and lava, which is a real gift to hikers seeking the drama, allure and breathtaking vistas offered by the incredible coastline.

This fertile and lush island had a population of 382 in 1841, which has declined steadily over the past 40 years. Today, the 15 or so permanent residents no longer have a school or shop, and there are few facilities on the island for visitors beyond the Ferry Waiting Room and church, which is undergoing renovation. Despite this, Papa is an island that calls to be explored, offering endless hours of enjoyment along its rugged coastline. The main settlement centres around the ferry harbour on the fertile east coast of the island at Housa Voe.

Out Skerries, known locally as Da Skerries or just Skerries, are a small low-lying trio of islands – Housay, Bruray and Grunay – that lies 13 miles off Shetland’s east coast, and four miles northeast of Whalsay. The coastline is a patchwork of small rocks and skerries that rise uncertainly from the sea on Shetland’s eastern horizon.

The island is home to around 30 people who are largely dependent on the fishing industry. Bruray and Housay are connected via a road bridge, and Grunay, which offers protection for the harbour, is now uninhabited, although the remains of the lighthouse buildings associated with the dominating Bound Skerry Lighthouse can still be seen across the harbour.

For this island adventure, we travelled to Mull. Mull is part of the Inner Hebrides and sits off the west coast of Scotland, with Islay, Jura and Colonsay to the south, Kerrera and Lismore to the east, Coll and Tiree to the west, and the uninhabited Treshnish Isles and Staffa. Mull is an island known for its wildlife, scenery and fascinating geology; it shares much of its allure with Shetland, yet is distinct and different in many ways, as we were to discover.

For as long as I can remember we have marked the passing of the longest day; whether that be a midnight walk to the top of a hill to watch the sun set and rise again, eating freshly caught mackerel straight from the sea, or a camping trip in a quiet valley listening to the call of the birds and watching as the mist rolls in over the hills like frosting.

Midsummer is the time around the summer solstice when the days melt into the night and the evenings remain still and light as the earth is bathed in a milky light which never really turns to darkness.

A few weeks ago, we were invited to come and stay at Shetland Glamping’s beautiful new pods at Rerwick. Enjoying incredible sea views across rolling countryside and out to sea, Shetland Glamping is the hottest new accommodation offering in Shetland’s South Mainland. After opening last summer, the guest book in our pod Shalder was already bursting with rave reviews for their luxurious ‘Mega Bunker’ Glamping Pods.

John’s perspective is unique in a modern socio-political context; he can look to the past for lessons while keeping a firm eye on the horizon and the future. He is neither bogged down in the past nor blinkered by the present. Much of what he discusses has a subtly woven political thread, hinting at his personal views and politics, yet they are never jarring or out of context. He has an innate ability to weave everything back to the fishing – an indication that this industry is fundamental to the very survival of our island communities.

Orkney’s sixth-largest island, Westray, packs a real punch. Bursting with life and brimming with wildlife, it has retained its sense of identity and feels the most ‘Orcadian’ of all the islands we visited, with a distinct sense of community.

Westray can feel remote from Kirkwall’s ‘bright lights’ but is only a short hop by air or sea.

Flanked by wild Atlantic waters, Westray’s coastline offers some of Orkney’s best seascapes and dramatic cliffs. The island has a busy and vibrant feel with sweeping sandy beaches and a gentle, fertile interior dominated by farming.

Lerwick-born Douglas Sinclair is well-known as a local author who has particularly enriched our knowledge of Lerwick with his fantastic books Old Lerwick: People and Places (2017) and Old Lerwick: Lanes and Lodberries (2021). From Honky-tonks to Helicopters is a real break away from what we have come to expect from Douglas, who has been publishing historical features since he retired in 2001. It captures a moment of significant change in Shetland with the coming of oil to the islands and all the societal shifts brought with it.

Auchmithie, where we were staying, is a former fishing village that predates Arbroath by several centuries, and although many of the small cottages were built as farming cottages supporting the rich farmland stretching far inland from the coast, creating a landscape of gently rolling hills, the village is best known for its fishing heritage.

Farewell Fugley Island was written by Alec Crawford and published by the Shetland Times in 2022. Alec, a wreck diver, arrived in Foula in the 1970s and spent six years living and working in the island, salvaging precious wreck material from the remains of the great liner Oceanic that was lost during the First World War.

The book is more a social history account of life on the island in the 1970s than an examination of diving the wreck. Examining a time of significant change on the island, Alec arrived as the last of the island’s cows were sold, and the community shop was set to close. Several young people had left, leaving a question mark over the future viability of this remote island that marks Shetland’s western horizon.

Shorehaven, where we were to spend the weekend, dates back to 1854 when Hermaness Lighthouse was built to aid navigation. Clinging to the hostile slopes of Muckle Flugga, a rocky outcrop off the north coast of Unst, Britain's most northerly lighthouse still shines a guiding light across the water to those at sea – Shorehaven forms part of the story of this iconic lighthouse.

The spectacular ruins of Levenwick Broch, one of around 120 known broch sites in Shetland, has always intrigued me, and I’m ashamed to say that, after driving up and down the A970 hundreds – if not thousands – of times, It’s taken me 35 years to get there.

“I’m passionate about the past, grateful for the present and look forward to a bright and prosperous tomorrow.”

Call of the Running Tide, written by Louis Johnson, and one of the latest publications from the Shetland Times sold out soon after it was released just before Christmas, has been brought back into stock with a hasty reprint.

Throughout Shetland, from January to March, the islands celebrate the festival of Up Helly Aa, with 12 Fire Festival and Up Helly Aa celebrations punctuating the darkness of winter with fiery processions, Viking dress and the world-renowned all-night parties that follow the burning of a Viking longship.

Shetland Mist is a haunting and evocative tale of faith, life, love and loss, set against the backdrop of 19th century Shetland, where families toiled, day in and day out to survive, eking out a meagre existence from the harsh and unforgiving land and sea.

In a few days time, just as we are taking down the Christmas decorations, and boxing them up for another year, Foula, our most westerly island will celebrate Christmas.

In the past, Christmas in Shetland meant something very different; we even held it on a different day. Known as Yule, it was a time of celebration and tradition, much of it stemming from pagan rituals and beliefs.

Today, Foula is one of the last places to celebrate the old calendar dates for Christmas and New Year celebrations, on the 6th and 13th of January.

Jura, known as the ‘Deer Island’, and famous as the place where George Orwell wrote his dystopian novel, 1984, and where the pop band KLF burnt one million pounds in cash in a boat shed in 1994, sits off the west coast of Scotland and is part of the Inner Hebrides. With a population of around 250, the island has a close-knit community dominated by the ever-present Paps of Jura, visible from most parts of the island and giving the island a mountainous and rugged feel.

The Peerie Neuk is a tiny “hut” in Unst and part of the tiny-house movement. This architectural and social movement advocates downsizing living spaces, simplifying interiors and living with less. As someone who resides in a constant state of clutter and chaos, kicking off my boots at the door of The Peerie Neuk was nothing short of cathartic!

Shetland's Boats: Origin, evolution and use is the book every boat enthusiast has been waiting for. There has yet to be a comprehensive study of Shetland's vernacular boats so rigorously carried out since Adrian Osler's The Shetland Boat: South Mainland and Fair Isle, originally published in 1984. This publication has, until now, been the 'go-to' work on Shetland's vernacular boats. But, for the first time, we now have a thorough compendium of Shetland's boats through history, all meticulously researched and interpreted, in one place.