I’m surprised to find out that St Kilda mailboats are still sent out today.
A St Kilda mailboat in the museum in Scalloway, Shetland
St Kilda is an island (actually a small archipelago) out in the Atlantic way west of Scotland. It was abandoned in 1930 when the way of life become unsustainable for the remaining 36 inhabitants. It’s now owned by the National Trust for Scotland and one of the best ways to visit the island (and one of the only ways to spend more than a few hours there) is to take part in one of their work parties. So far it hasn’t been feasible for me to do this, but one day I will.
Until their evacuation, the residents of St Kilda lived in almost complete isolation. The only way they had of communicating with the outside world was with the aid of a St Kilda mailboat. These mailboats were small wooden boxes in which letters and money for a stamp would be placed. They’d be sealed up, an inflated sheep’s bladder would be attached as a float and the mailboat would be launched. They usually landed in Scotland or Scandinavia where the finder would hopefully post the letter inside.
Today I saw an article on the National Trust for Scotland’s website about a mailboat launched by one of last summer’s work parties being found in Norway. Although there are other means of communication now, each work party launches a mailboat as a way of re-enacting the tradition. Until I saw this article I hadn’t realised they did this.
I wonder who’ll find the one I launch when I eventually join a work party there?
Gannets, puffins, a lighthouse called Muckle Flugga, a chocolate factory and a brewery: just some of the reasons why Unst is my favourite island.
Sunday 14/8/11
The hostel at Uyeasound in Unst.
Unst is one of my favourite places in the world. You can’t get any further north in the UK. There are a couple of rocks further north (Muckle Flugga and Out Stack), but this is the last place that can actually be called a place. Last time I was here, I found it difficult to tear myself away and spent about half of my time on Shetland here. This time I’ve left it till last so I had something to look forward to and so I did get to see other places too.
I’ve been here a couple of days already. The first day was spent doing admin-y type things – finding internet access to book my train tickets for the Great Glen Way (GGW), sending emails, getting petrol, doing a stock-take of my food and working out what I needed to buy for the GGW, and so on.
Yesterday was really stormy. Force 7 winds and rain lashing down until the evening. No-one could really go anywhere, including all the canoeists who are up here for the weekend. We all sat around the hostel watching the waves crash against the shoreline and the tents flap madly in the wind. Once again my little Vango survived brilliantly. There was a similar storm when I was here last year and other people’s much more expensive tents were tearing and had poles snapping. Mine flaps away, but survives without the tiniest shred of a tear or hairline crack of a pole.
Calm after the storm.
This morning was beautiful. As predicted, the storm had blown itself out. After breakfast I drove out to Hermaness. This is a nature reserve at the end of the end of the UK. There is a car parking area and a small visitor centre with toilets. This area is known for its birds as well its dramatic views. Because of the birds visitors are requested to stay on the paths and not wander freely across the moorland tops. As it is very, very boggy it’s much easier to stay on the paths anyway.
I walked about 30 minutes uphill and then across moorland to the cliffs. Once at the cliffs most people head east to see the puffin colony and Muckle Flugga with its lighthouse. As I like to be a bit contrary I walked west. Just a few minutes to the west, where hardly anyone goes, is the most amazing gannetry (gannet colony). I discovered this last year and wanted to go back this year. The dark cliffs look white, they are that stuffed with gannets. The air is full of gannets; the sea is full of bobbing gannets. The noise, the smell, is just pure gannet. Most of my senses felt completely overwhelmed by it.
The gannetry at Hermaness
Only after having my fill of gannets did I walk east. I didn’t see any puffins this year, though I’d probably only just missed them. Last year, I was here a few days earlier and there were puffins everywhere. I’d sat for ages with puffins popping up out of the ground or zooming in to land all around me.
Hermaness with Muckle Flugga in the distance.
I walked further east along the cliffs until I was level with Muckle Flugga. I have to learn to kayak properly so I can actually get there. There were a dozen canoeists on the water today and I watched for a while to see if they would go to Muckle Flugga, but they just seemed to be sticking to the coast.
Leaving the cliffs I headed up and across the moors again on another path that joined with the original path to drop down to the car park.
I finished my day out by going to the chocolate factory for a deluxe experience. A hot chocolate with whipped cream, marshmallows and a chocolate lattice; three Abernathy biscuits partly dipped in dark, milk and white chocolate; two filled chocolates, one dark and one white; and three squares of solid milk, dark and white chocolate. How ideal is this island? It’s isolated, friendly, relaxing, has great wildlife and views AND has its own brewery and chocolate factory. Can you see why it’s one of my favourite places?
A museum curator who does cartwheels in the car park, home-made ice cream with unusual flavours and a couple of lovely walks.
Wednesday 10th August, 2011 and Thursday 11th August, 2011
I arrived in Fetlar on Tuesday evening and pitched my tent in the boggy field that is the official campsite. Apart from a Dutch family on the far side of the field, I was the only person there. The wind was getting up, but the light was beautiful so I had a stroll along the road taking photos of the amazing coastline, before settling in for the night.
Wednesday was a beautiful day. I started by going to the museum. As I drove up a boy was doing cartwheels in the car park, obviously really enjoying the sun. He turned out to be the curator and tourist info guy. When I turned into the car park he went back inside and stood behind the counter and was very professional.
The museum had lots of local history, geology, etc. There was a big display on William Watson Cheyne who had a house in Fetlar. There were lots of connections with places I’ve been so I was quite interested. He was born on his father’s ship just off Tasmania and christened in the Scottish church in Hobart. He’d worked in King’s College Hospital. His family were from Tangwick Haa.
I spoke to C (the young curator) and an older woman who came in. She was a trustee of the museum. The curator had left suddenly and they had a new one starting in another week or so. The new one was a lady from the Isle of Sheppey. As the museum was currently curatorless the trustees had been opening it up and working in it voluntarily. They’d also got the island’s teenagers to get involved and do shifts. C was one of those. He was 14 years old and originally from Warrington. He’d moved to Fetlar with his younger sister 18 months ago when his mum got the district nurse job. C was a student at the Anderson, the main high school for Shetland’s children of secondary school age. He’d started at the high school in Unst but didn’t like the travelling and having to get up at 6am and not getting home till 5pm. He was really happy at the Anderson, living in the hostel. He said everyone, kids and teachers, had made him feel part of things from the start. He felt they got a lot a more freedom then he had in Warrington too. There are no school uniforms in Shetland schools, but he said it gets a bit boring wearing your own clothes as then you have nothing different to wear in your own time.
He told me there were nine children currently on Fetlar, but a family with two more, including a girl his age, were due to arrive on Friday. It seemed that life on Fetlar is ‘moving up’ – families are moving in and the primary school which has been closed for a couple of years as there were no children that age, is about to re-open as there are now two children to go to it. The previous teacher is coming back.
It seems a good thing to do to get the teenagers involved in the museum as not only do they get to know about their island, it’s great work experience. Where else would a 14 year old be doing shifts in a museum by himself, dealing with tourist info queries, both in person as the museum doubles as the tourist info office, and fielding overflow calls from the main Lerwick tourist office?
The woman trustee showed me some old photos including one of her and her friends standing outside the Anderson hostel back in their school days there. There was a woman visitor in the museum who said she had also been a pupil at the Anderson. She is now a teacher, though not there. I don’t think she lives in Shetland. Three generations of Anderson students together – this must be quite normal here, where everyone will have these connections and links.
The woman also showed me a photo of the old church. This has now been rebuilt as the modern community centre and the only original part seems to be the internal roof. All dark wood. She was the last person to get married in this church back in 1969. As there weren’t the ferry links then it was a massive task to get all the food and guest together. Fetlar weddings she said, at least back then, can go on for days.
Fetlar is hoping to get good enough internet connections that people on the island can start working from home doing council jobs and so on. Teleworking. This would be good in further encouraging people to move to Fetlar. There are about 70 people at the moment.
I left the museum still giggling at the thought of the museum curator doing cartwheels in the car park. It kept me amused all day.
Before going to the museum I’d called in at the well-stocked shop to pay for camping. I spoke to the woman who had moved up from the Midlands a year or two ago to take over the shop. She told me about riots that have been happening in cities in England, including Manchester. Apparently police had shot someone in London and a demonstration about this had turned into a riot that had spread around the country. It seemed to be more an opportunity for thugs and looters to have a field day than anything political though. I love that I can be in a place in the UK and yet not know about something as major as this happening. It really is like a different world. She also told me that because of the film that’s currently being shot in Shetland, The One Show had been up and done some of their own filming. The shop woman had been interviewed, but she wasn’t sure when it was going to be on.
I next went to the community centre where there is the Fetlar Café. I had a Panini and coffee – a cafetiere of very good strong coffee and then followed it with a homemade golden bay flavour icecream. The cook in the café used to be the school cook until the school closed down. The café job is part-time so she’s thinking about selling her ice-cream commercially. A small tub with a simple ‘Fetlar ice cream’ label was £1.80. Most of the ingredients she sources locally, but obviously some she can’t. Golden Bay has the cream flavoured with bay leaves and then it’s sweetened with golden syrup instead of sugar. The homemade cakes looked good too.
Leaving the café I drove the short distance to Funzie Loch (Funzie is pronounced Finney) I watched two red-throated divers on the loch for a while and then walked to the hide where I sat for over an hour looking for exciting wildlife. I saw a rabbit. The Dutch family were also at the hide but didn’t stay very long. When I left the hide I walked up across a boggy, burn criss-crossed moor to the old derelict coast guard station. There were quite a few bonxies about , but they were enjoying flying about and not at all interested in me. I then walked round the headland taking photos and stopping to admire the views. It was late when I got back to my car and I didn’t get back to my tent till about 8pm. It’s wonderful having such long days, even at this time it was still broad daylight.
The following morning I had a bit of a lazy start. I had a shower and got packed up and then went back to the café for lunch and a gooseberry and elderflower ice cream. More gooseberry taste than elderflower, but delicious all the same.
I left the car back at the campsite and waked down to Tresta beach. I intended walking along the beach and then following a path to the high point of the cliffs above. I had a quick look at the church – lots of memorials to various locals of bygone times – and then made my way to the beach. I got interested in the rocks and shells and spent my time walking up and down and collecting some of them instead of going up onto the hill. I only left when it was time to collect my car for the drive to the pier to catch the 4.45pm ferry.
I woke to a really nice day. The first ferry came in, but the only tourist was a young guy over for the day. Once ready, I started walking. I wanted to walk round part of the coast and then cut inland to the church to pick up the book I’d given Jane the money for yesterday. I spent a while wandering along a couple of beaches and then couldn’t get any further without cutting inland a bit sooner than I’d wanted to. I got as far as a house and croft that looked wonderful – it’s got its own beach and a great view of the stacks.
After collecting my book I walked to the end of the road to the airstrip and then headed out across the moors. I spent most of the rest of the day wandering on the moors, getting close to the coast every now and again, going round lochs and up on to the tops. I headed back to the waiting room with enough time to cook a few days’ worth of pasta and tomato sauce and to eat dinner. Then I got the last ferry back to mainland.
On the ferry I spoke to the young guy who’d got off the boat this morning. He was from Hamilton but had lived in Lerwick for the past year. He’d finished university and then got a graduate training position with SIC (Shetland Islands Council). He only had three weeks left before he moved to Plymouth to take up a permanent position. He’d been out walking every weekend and so had seen plenty of Shetland. This was his only day in Papa Stour though. At least he got to see it before leaving. He’d managed to walk the whole way round the coast and it had been a good clear day.
Talking to him made me think more about living in Skerries. If I had a campervan I could spend every weekend going to different parts of Shetland and getting lots of walking done. After a few years of doing this I’d know these islands inside out. Note to self: look up the job advert for the teaching position in Skerries and see if I fit the criteria.
Arriving in Papa Stour and discovering its Viking past and the best waiting room EVER!
Friday 5th August, 2011
The night before getting the ferry to Papa Stour I drove down to the small harbour intending to camp there. I didn’t want to be too far away as there’s just one narrow, winding road to get to the harbour and if I got stuck behind a tractor or something I could easily miss the ferry. For the first time I struggled to find somewhere to pitch my tent. There was virtually no flat ground apart from a tiny patch near the toilet block which was so hard I’d never have got my tent pegs in. I thought about sleeping in the little waiting room, but it had a light on a timer or sensor that seemed as though it would be on all night, and there were fishermen coming and going all night. So I ended up piling everything from the back of my car on to the front seats and sleeping on the back seat. It wasn’t as uncomfortable as I’d imagined it to be and I did get quite a bit of sleep. But it’s reinforced my idea of buying some kind of van that I can easily sleep in the back of when the need arises. I can’t afford a proper campervan, but I’m sure I can find something that I can adapt.
Below is the extract from my diary of arrival and first day on Papa Stour.
I woke up and had time for a shower (£1) before getting the ferry over to Papa Stour. There is a shower in with the disabled toilet. It got very hot and I had to keep adjusting it, but it lasted ages. It was drizzling a bit as I waited for the ferry. I spoke to an older woman who was also waiting with her car. Her name was Jane and she was going over for the day as she has land on the island. She told me about camping by the waiting room near the pier. It has a heater which she said I was free to use, just remember to turn it off afterwards. She also asked me not to have a campfire. She said that a few weeks ago a group of people had dug up a patch of grass by the waiting room so they could have a fire. They hadn’t replaced it. The islanders have since replaced it, but it’s quite obvious where it was. As this area of grass is more like a lawn and is well maintained this didn’t go down well. She said another group had removed stones from an old wall to put round their fire. The wall was broken anyway, but is still part of the ‘look’ of the island. I assured her that I’d only be using my camp stove and wouldn’t light any fires.
The best waiting room EVER!
camping by the waiting room
The ferry journey took about forty minutes and it was raining more heavily when we arrived. Jane pointed out the waiting room to me which is slightly up the road from the pier. It has a great view of the bay and some sea stacks. There was a lot of information on the walls – both community and tourist information. Lots about the history and nature of the island. There were plenty of chairs and a proper kitchen sink. Also a table with a kettle, proper cups and takeaway ones, teabags, coffee, coffee creamer powder, sugar, hot chocolate sachets and little individual cartons of milk for the tea. This was free with a sign saying to help yourself, but donations to the local history society would be appreciated. Jane came in to top up the supplies. The following morning a couple came in to do the same and said that someone always comes down when the ferry comes in to make sure everything is topped up.
Next to the waiting room was a toilet block, but no shower. The only thing it was lacking. There was enough room for a shower though so who knows in the future. Outside there was the nice lawn perfect for pitching a tent on and a picnic bench.
As it was raining quite heavily by this time I sat in the waiting room and had a coffee. I used my own supplies as I thought I wouldn’t deplete theirs. I did leave a donation though before I left for the use of the facilities. I finished reading ‘Shetland Black’, a slim novel I’d started the night before. The speech parts are written in dialect but it was understandable if I read it ‘out loud’ in my mind. It was quite a dark novel about a small community in the north of mainland imploding. But did cheer up a bit at the end.
As it was still raining I had a second cup of coffee and read through some of the National Geographic magazines that were in the waiting room along with the island’s library book box. After that I decided I had to brave it and put my tent up. Then I had lunch. By this time it was about 2pm and the rain had eased off a lot. I walked up the road to the church, past a few houses, one of which had a beautifully laid out garden. I stopped at the Stofa. Jane had mentioned this and told me that I could find out what it was when I got there. It turned out to be a rebuilding of a traditional Norwegian house. The community had got together with a group from Norway to rebuild it. There had been three houses on the site and two are marked out on the ground. The main house, the Stofa, is the one they’ve partially rebuilt. Dry stone walls surround two sides of it to protect it from the harshest Atlantic weather. The building itself is made from logs; huge logs that have been planed and carved in Norway using traditional techniques. Norway funded part of the project and the Papa Stour community raised the funding for the rest. Part of the agreement was that some young Shetlanders would go to Norway to work with the Norwegians and learn the techniques. Three young men were chosen. One was unable to take up the opportunity as it clashed with his exams. One was a local boy (I think he was from Papa Stour) of sixteen who got permission to take a few weeks out of school to go. The third was from the (Shetland) Mainland, in his early 20s and already working as a cabinet maker (or carpenter?). The project was a success and on the information boards are photographs of the logs being worked on out in the open in a town square in Norway and then the challenge of getting them loaded on to ferries and delivered to Papa Stour. Once on the island the house was reconstructed. There’s no roof and the whole thing is not a finished house, but this is intentional and shows the technique quite clearly.
Stofa Reconstruction (from the information boards)
This partial reconstruction was a partnership project between Papa Stour History Group, Norwegian Crafts Development and other Norwegian groups. Craftsmen and students took part in an exchange, passing on traditional skills.
The large logs were worked in Borgen, Norway, using tools and methods typical of the medieval period. They were then shipped to Shetland, before being reconstructed on site.
The original drystone walls were designed to protect the Stofa’s timbers from the prevailing winds and weather. These have been rebuilt on the original foundations with stones from the site.
The Walls
Drystone dykers from Shetland and Norway rebuilt the walls (‘vernemurer’) during the summer of 2007. A protective membrane was used to separate the old masonry from the new.
The long wall is thicker than the gable, to enable it to withstand Atlantic winds. Both walls are wider at the base, and taper slightly towards the top.
The gable is slightly stepped due to the uneven ground surface.
The Timbers
The lowest logs (‘sills’ or ‘svill’) were cut from pine trees growing in Romsdal, and the remaining logs from trees in Granvin.
Trees more than 150 years old were felled from Norwegian forests for the rebuilding of the stofa.
The logs were worked on in Norway, then transported to Shetland by the sailing ship, STATSRAAD LEHMKUHL. The joints for each log were carefully protected for the journey.
The construction was assembled on site in June 2008 by carpenters from Norway and Shetland students. The building measure 7.75 metres by 5.75 metres, with some of the sills (lowest logs) weighing over 500kg.
Da Biggins
Excavations at Da Biggins revealed the remains of a 13th century house. The building found is a stofa (a timber building made from notched logs), and dates to the time when Shetland was part of Norway.
The stofa belonged to Duke Hakon Hakonsson of Norway, and was part of his farm at Da Biggins.
Stofas were smaller, more comfortable buildings than the older Viking longhouses, but bigger than the homes of most Shetlanders.
Dispute at Da Biggins
Some dramatic events took place here at Da Biggins in 1299, when Shetland was part of Norway. At Easter that year a woman called Ragnhild Simunsdatter confronted Thorvald Thoresson, Duke Hakon Hakonsson’s representative in Shetland, the lord of Papa Stour.
She accused him of betraying Duke Hakon by taking higher rents from the farm of Brekasaetr (Bragaster) than was due. Ragnhild accused Thorvald of cheating Hakon. The case came to the Lawthing, Shetland’s parliament, at Tingwall. The lawmen rejected Ragnhild’s allegations, and the court drew up a document giving details of the quarrel. It is Shetland’s earliest surviving written record.
The document tells us that one of the incidents took place in the stofa, which you now see partially reconstructed today.
The Stofa
The building had just one room, with a hearth in the centre, and a door in the middle of the west gable. To the right of it a small extension was built, which archaeologists think may have been an outside toilet. The roof may have come down over the top of the wall, as shown in the reconstruction drawing above.
The wooden floor of the stofa was discovered by a team of archaeologists, led by Dr Barbara Crawford of St Andrew’s University, during excavations from 1977 to 1990.
The log timbers of the stofa must have rotted away and had been removed, but the wooden floor was left in situ and partially survived. It was carbon-dated to between 1200 and 1400.
The team also found the foundations of outer protective walls. Their purpose was to protect the wooden timbers from bad weather.
I then walked up to the church and saw Jane outside tending her sheep so I chatted to her for a while. She’d been the primary school teacher on the island before she retired and had also spent two winters working at the school in Foula. She had handed over five years ago to the teacher who has just left. She had sheep when she was teaching and this got me thinking that I could also have sheep if I was a teacher in Skerries (there is a job going there which I’m seriously tempted by). I could add ‘shepherdess’ to my list of the many jobs I’ve done!
She has about seventy sheep including lambs and has names for at least some of them. I might want to give mine names too, but that might make them seem like pets and be difficult when it comes time to send them to slaughter. Jane has one small, mostly dark brown lamb called Jacobina – she was the runt of a litter of three and was born late, hence the name. She seemed more like a pet and was fussing around Jane and me wanting her head stroked and presumably after food as well.
Jane seemed a really involved member of the community – important in an island of only twenty. Not only did she have her croft and had been the teacher, but she was involved in the local history group and had done most of the fundraising and liaising for the Stofa project.
The island community apparently was in crisis a few years ago when there was a lot of infighting. At the time Ron McMillan wrote ‘Between Weathers’ it almost seemed as if the community wouldn’t survive. But a few families have left (have others moved in?) and things presumably have settled down. I didn’t bring up the topic as I think in the past it had been a sore point and got bad press in the national papers. From the efforts the islanders are going to, to show they are a community and to make visitors feel welcome, I wondered if this was a deliberate thing to move them away from the fragmented recent past and show the outside world that their reputation doesn’t deserve the tarnish.
The church is a small, calm building surrounded by its graveyard. There is more information on the community and for visitors in a small room to the right of the entrance. There were slim books on sale for £5 each by a local author, George P. S. Peterson. They had some history and a lot of poems in dialect in them. I would have bought one as a souvenir and as a contribution (profits go to the history group) but only had a £20 note.
As it was starting to rain again I walked back to the waiting room. I spent the rest of the evening in there reading. Jane popped in on her way back to the last ferry and changed my £20 note so I could buy one of the books tomorrow. The evening cleared and as it got dark I sat in the waiting room until late with the lights off, just gazing at the wonderful view. The stacks (geological features – big stacks of rock standing just off the coast) look stunning in the diminishing light.
A short walk near Sandness with views of Papa Stour.
Thursday 4th August, 2011
Arriving back in Walls from Foula in time for lunch I dumped my gear in the car and walked over to the cafe for a bowl of soup. After lunch I drove through Sandness (pronounced Saaness) to the end of the road and did a short coastal walk. The day had really cleared up and was warm, still and clear. I saw three old, derelict watermills on a small downhill stream between the parking bay and the coast. Throughout my walk I could see Papa Stour across the water. It’s not very far and was really clear. Many years ago it was connected to the mainland.
The walking was easy and on the level. I spent longer than I’d intended on what was really only a walk of a few miles, because I kept stopping to admire the view and to take photos. As is usual in Shetland paths were occasionally blocked by fences or locked gates and I had to figure out a way round or over them. Most of Shetland is effectively access land, but as Scottish laws are different to English ones, the footpath system isn’t the same and farmers and landowners don’t seem to have the same requirements to keep paths open. It’s nice being able to walk pretty much everywhere, but sometimes I’d like to be able to follow a path knowing I’m not going to have to make detours.
I headed inland at Sandness and walked back along the road to return to my car.
My final day. I was up quite early and had a strip wash and washed my hair in the toilet block. It’s very basic and there was only a cold tap, but at least there was no-one around so I was able to take advantage. Then I made a flask of coffee and packed up. I walked back to the pier in thick mist and arrived just after 9am. I had plenty of time before the ferry left at 9.30am, but had just missed seeing the ferry being lowered to the water. I could hear the whirring of the lift through the mist as I walked along the road, but of course could see nothing.
Once on the boat I went into the cabin and stayed there for the whole journey, reading and drinking coffee. It was much colder and windier than on the way out and I was the only passenger. Once we cleared the harbour it was really choppy. The boat was getting tossed all over the place. Brian came into the cabin and offered me a sick bag, but I said I didn’t think I’d need it. He was a bit sceptical, but seemed impressed when we arrived and I hadn’t needed it. I’m so glad I don’t get seasick as I can imagine how horrible that must be on a journey like this one.
Reflecting on my few days in Foula, I feel quite satisfied even though I didn’t see or do any of the things I wanted to. For starters, I now have a good reason to go back. But also, I feel like I saw the real Foula. It spends so much time shrouded in mist it wouldn’t have been the ‘real’ experience if I’d had great weather. Also it was so eerie and mystical with the mist, and also so peaceful and calming, that I felt really relaxed and content. People pay a fortune for spas and health breaks to get that kind of feeling, when all they need do is spend a few days living in a tiny tent with a load of sheep in a bog on a remote foggy island.
Wandering through the mist on Foula and chatting with the locals.
I woke up, after my first night on Foula, a short while before before the first plane was due. I was wondering if I’d have to move my tent, but was surprised by how quiet it was. I know it’s a tiny airport, but surely there should be some noise? A quick look outside my tent soon confirmed that the mist was back down as heavy and thick as it had been yesterday. No flights then.
Gaada Stack
I stayed in my tent, reading, writing my diary and enjoying some thinking time until the afternoon. Then as the mist started to lift a bit I went for a walk to the north end of the island. I stuck to the road, but as I got towards the north the mist cleared enough that I could see the outline of the tops of the hills (hills I should’ve been walking in) and I did get to see Gaada Stack which is a spectacular looking arch standing on its own in the sea. It looked particularly good with the mist behind it.
The primary school
Peat drying
On the way down I’d passed the primary school so I had a peer in through the windows. It was a modern building and looked like it had great facilities. There was a big kitchen too, which I couldn’t see the point of. Later I was told that the school also contains the community hall and the kitchen is for community events. There are seven children in the school.
Keeping the ferry safe from storms
I walked back down to the pier and saw more seals and took pictures of the boat hanging up. It has to be winched up when not in use to protect it from storms. I passed a couple of the crew members tending their crofts and had a chat with them. As I walked back towards the airport a 3rd crew member pulled up beside me in his car. We had a chat and he checked that I was going out on the ferry next morning. He offered me a lift, which I accepted as I thought it would be nice to chat. He was going to the lighthouse at the south end of the island as one of his jobs is that of lighthouse keeper. The lighthouse is automated and so he just goes once or twice a week to check it. He’s about 70 and should be retired, but said that people on the island just tend to keep on working. The oldest islander is a lady of 92. He told me that when people get too old to really manage on their own the other islanders all muck in and help.
We did some off-roading to get to the lighthouse and briefly got stuck. He was only going to pick up a toolbox that the maintenance men had left there. They come once a year and are going to Fair Isle next. They’re probably the same ones I saw on Fair Isle last year. I was able to go into the lighthouse with him, though there was nothing exciting to see. Going in sets off an alarm in Edinburgh so he had to phone to say it was him. Otherwise they’d be phoning his house to tell him to go and check it out.
Things Brian told me before dropping me back at my tent are:
He’s lived in Foula for 35 years, which is half his life.
He was captain of the ferry but has now given that up and is an ordinary crew member. He still gets captain’s pay but with none of the responsibility.
The current captain (Kevin?) worked with him for 24 years before getting the captaincy.
Kevin (?) and some other islanders are the great grandchildren of the former laird Ian B. Stoughton Holbourn, whose book I’m reading at the moment. How horrified he would have been to find his descendands being ordinary crofters and ferrymen.
The current primary teacher is leaving after 5 years in the job.
The new teacher is a woman in her 50s and has a grown up family. She was previously working in Dubai.
Brian is a school governor.
The nurse is also giving up her job. Although it comes with a salary of £45k and she rarely has to do anything, she’s finding it boring as she was used to working in a busy A&E ward before. She and her husband are staying on Foula and have a croft.
People on Foula are pretty healthy and don’t tend to get ill. Instead they have rather dramatic accidents like rolling their vehicles over up on the tops.
Brian has rolled his 4WD twice. The passenger door had a big gap at the top where it had been bent. It had been his wife’s car, but she’s made him swap and give her his, after he damaged hers.
Rent for the croft (and I think for the house) is £8 a year. The landlords tried to put it up recently, but didn’t succeed.
You can buy your croft and house for ten times the annual rent, but if you buy you’re not eligible for grants. So people tend to get all the grants, do their place up and then buy it.
Brian hasn’t bought his yet, but is now thinking about it as his son has decided to stay on Foula.
He probably told me more, but that’s all I remember.
Once back at my tent I cooked and then spent the rest of the evening reading. Later in the evening a man drew up in his van outside my tent and asked if I wanted any fresh fish. I politely declined. The mist had really drawn in again by this time.
During my walk I took photos of some of the many abandoned cars. As there’s no way of scrapping them, when they finally die they are just left to rot. Some of them are used for storage and are filled with bags of animal feed and tins of paint. Most people don’t bother with things like MOTs, road tax or insurance.
I seem to be getting to more and more remote British islands, but my ultimate goal is St Kilda. This is a small collection of islands (how many does it need to be to count as an archipelago?) way off the west coast of Scotland. It was abandoned by its remaining inhabitants back in the 1930s as they could no longer sustain their way of life there. It’s now owned by the National Trust for Scotland and is extremely tricky and expensive to get to.
The nearest I’ve managed to get so far is Foula, another remote island off the west coast of Scotland. This has come close to being abandoned in the past, but currently has a population of about 30 and seems to be surviving quite well. Foula is the island used to represent St Kilda in old films about the last days on the island.
The journey to Foula is either by a small mailboat or a tiny plane. The island is known for its fog and so the plane is often cancelled. The boat can also be cancelled due to bad weather and so although I was only intending going to Foula for 2 nights, it could have turned out to be longer. The man in the shop in Walls, where I departed from, warned me about this and so I packed a few extra days’ food supplies.
I left my car and walked round to the ferry terminal in plenty of time for the 1.30pm departure. However, we didn’t leave until about an hour later as the captain had got stuck in fog on his way from Brae. The journey was expected to take about 2.5 hrs which was fairly accurate. There were a few other passengers on the boat as well as a crew of four. The other passengers consisted of a family of four who were on their way to visit the man’s sister who’d moved to Foula a year or two before. They’d been booked to fly, but the plane had been cancelled because of the fog.
Foula appearing in the mist
The journey was good, the sea was so calm, no waves at all, though there was quite a big swell. I stood out on deck the whole time hoping to see whales but wasn’t lucky. As we got nearer to Foula it started to rain a bit and the weather really closed in. When we first came in sight of Foula it was as a vague shadow in the mist and it was only when we were almost there that I was sure that it was land I was seeing and not just a trick of the light.
We docked and had to climb up a ladder on the side of the pier. Luggage, post and shopping deliveries were piled into a crate and lifted out with a crane. Whilst waiting I watched a couple of seals playing about in the harbour. Then I walked about a mile along the road to the airport where I’d decided to camp. The fog was so dense that although it wasn’t far and the airport is in plain sight of the road I still had to get my map and compass out and navigate my way to it. I couldn’t see it until I was actually there.
My tent is to the left. Abandoned cars to the right.
There was one fire station building and a tiny waiting room with a toilet and wash basin with cold water. A few abandoned cars were parked in the car park alongside the runway. I wandered around for a while over the boggy ground trying to find a slightly less boggy bit on which to pitch my tent. There only seemed to be one bit and that was quite close to the runway. I was no closer than the cars though, and it wouldn’t have been the worst thing in the world if I had to move my tent next morning before the first plane arrived.
Lots of curious sheep watched me pitching my tent. They were all over the runway – I don’t know what happens when a plane is due? – does someone have to chase them away? Once my tent was pitched I sat on stone seat and finished my flask of coffee. It was a mild evening and was lovely to be sitting there so alone in the mist, staring at the sheep who were staring right back at me. Apart from the odd ‘baa’ it was completely silent.
After a while the mist seemed to be lifting a little so I walked to the far end of the road and back. It was really eerie walking along and seeing shapes looming in the mist. Not knowing if they were houses, sheep or abandoned cars until I was quite close. I could hear a few sounds of life, but saw no-one. On the way back to my tent the mist lifted even more and it started to rain. I gave up my walk as it was getting a bit late anyway, and hibernated in my tent for the rest of the evening.
I was up before 8am for a shower and to get packed up. I left my tent till last and was able to pack it completely dry. Even the underneath was dry. The ferry was at 9.30am. I was really quite sad to be leaving Skerries. I’d had such a lovely weekend and the community seems so friendly and vibrant.
The weather wasn’t quite as nice today and although the water in the harbour was calm, as soon as we cleared it the ferry was rocked all over the place. I wasn’t worried about myself, but I was really nervous about my car. As I’m expecting bits to drop off it anyway, this probably wasn’t particularly good for it. I sat in Jill’s campervan watching it through the back window. Even Mutley was very subdued. He only started to liven up when we got into calmer waters close to Mainland.
We drove round to the other small harbour in Vidlin and found the Spirit Dancer canoeists. The weather had really changed and was quite cold and raining a bit. The canoeists thought that maybe no-one would turn up and they wouldn’t go out. Jill and I parted company at this point. She was going to Lerwick to find out about ferries back to Orkney and I was going for a walk round Lunna Ness and then heading west ready to go to Foula tomorrow.
I drove down to the end of the road at Outrabister where there is a small parking bay. Jill had told me about an interesting second hand shop in the last house on the peninsula. It’s in an old byre and still has the drainage hollows running along the floor. It was packed with stuff, but seemed a bit junky so I didn’t buy anything. The guy was really friendly and chatty. He had a huge house, but can’t make any money from the shop. There was a big modern barn outside and lots of sheep so he must do farming as well and the shop is a kind of hobby. I didn’t get chance to ask him though as he was waiting for a phone call and when it came he had to go and meet someone on the road with some ‘messages’. The phone call came as I was talking to him and curtailed the conversation. Before he went he pointed out a hill with a bit of a track that I could get good views from.
I sat in my car and had lunch and then got my boots and wet weather gear on and headed back down the road walking, to where I spotted a sign post to the the Stanes of Stofast. It was a boggy, soggy moorland walk to get to them and took over an hour. It shouldn’t have taken that long, but for the zigzagging and backtracking I had to do. The rocks were quite impressive; huge boulders displaced by glacial movement. Originally they were a single 2,000 tonne boulder that drifted from Norway on the ice and was later split into two by frost. There were great views from up there as well.
I then walked closer to the coast and then back inland to get to the trig point at the highest point on the peninsula. I walked a bit further towards the end of the peninsula before circling back and making for the hill that the man in the shop had pointed out. Then it was back down the track to his yard and back to my car. Apart from a few odd bits of blowy drizzle, the rain stayed off and I had a nice ‘fresh’ walk.
Other points of interests in this part of Shetland include Lunna House – formerly a farm estate house, but now better known as the base for the Shetland Bus. The Shetland Bus was the code name for the boats which plied the sea between Shetland and Norway to aid Allied efforts in the Second World War. Small fishing boats smuggled saboteurs, radios, explosives and ammunition into Nazi-occupied Norway and brought compromised agents back to Shetland.
The church is also quite interesting as it has a hole in the wall that was thought to have a been a ‘leper’s hole’ – anyone with leprosy could stand outside by the hole to hear the service without risking the health of the rest of the congregation. Historians these days think the hole was more likely to have been part of the heating system.
