I’m loving watching the sunrise whilst swimming in steam and snow.
I love my snowboots. My feet have so been so warm and dry in all this snow. the only problem with them is when I sink deeper than my knees. Would it have been possible to get thigh-high snowboots?
I love my new camera too. It takes amazing pictures and makes it all so easy. Even in the dark (which it is most of the time here) I don’t need a tripod – it just focuses and then remembers what the image looks like whilst it does the long exposure thing. So I’m not getting any blurry photos. Wowee.
I haven’t seen the Northern Lights yet, as each evening so far the trip out of the city to see them has been cancelled. It only runs when there’s a good chance of seeing them. But I have plenty of time left yet.
What have I done so far? Well, yesterday morning I went outdoor swimming in the pool next to the hostel. I started by sitting in the first hot pot I came to as my bare feet were freezing fast as I walked over the icy ground the 2 metres to the pool. It was so warm. There was even a floating chess set bobbing about on it, so I suppose people really do spend hours in them.
I stayed in this hot pot until it was infiltrated by young children having a snowball fight. The Icelandic version of water polo perhaps? Then I switched to the main swimming pool which was cooler, but still a good temperature. I couldn’t see how big the pool was because it was dark and the rising steam made it really misty. So visibility was down to about zero. I kept swimming round corners and bends and discovering more and more pool. Or maybe I was just swimming in tight circles and thought I was discovering new bits. At one point I swam under a bridge and discovered an elderly people’s exercise class going on in one of the lanes.
Once I’d had enough of swimming I sat in a different hot pot – one with bends, corners and alcoves and watched the sun beginning to rise through the fir trees. It got slightly above the horizon which is about the best to be hoped for at this time of year. It gets light around 11am and is dark again well before 5pm.
Í’ve also been drinking lots of good coffee whilst I’ve been here. I think Icelandic coffee is second only to Dutch coffee. It’s dark and strong and doesn’t come in a bucket. Last time I was here I discovered a new little coffee shop called Cafe Haiti. It’s run by a woman who is one of only two Haitians in Iceland. She imports the coffee from Haiti and roasts it herself. When I got home I wrote a review of it on Trip Advisor. The first day I was here I saw an advert for Cafe Haiti in one of the free tourist papers. It was quoting a customer who said they’d gone to Cafe Haiti because of a review they’d read on Trip Advisor and it really was as good as the review said. I’ve since seen the same ad in several other places. As far as I’m aware I’m the only person who’s written a review on Trip Advisor so I must be the reviewer the advert is referring to. Does this make me famous? Or at least semi-famous? Even though no-one knows who I am. I’m glad my review (if it is mine – I will have to check when I’m not paying for internet) has done her some good. I’ve been back today and she is now in bigger premises.
There’s so much still to do before I go to Iceland.
I’m so busy at school at the moment I feel like I still have so much to do to prepare for Iceland and I’m not getting time to do it. It’s a week today that I go. I keep thinking about clothes. It’s going to be cold – even if the temperature hovers around zero the wind could make it feel a lot colder. And it’s going to rain. Vertically, horizontally, diagonally, it’s going to rain. I’d thought about getting a really good winter jacket such as a down jacket, but it seems the jackets that are made for warmth aren’t particularly waterproof. Down in particular, is really not recommended for wet weather, though it’s the warmest thing out there. So I’m just going to have to layer up underneath my waterproof jacket. The problem with that is that there’s only so much I can fit underneath it whilst still being able to move. I’ve just invested in some new thermal leggings and vests and I tried them out yesterday. They are very thin, but kept me really snug, so that’s a partial solution.
I’ve just reproofed my jacket. Last weekend the rain soaked right through so I knew it had to be done. I could have done with some rain this weekend to test it now it’s been reproofed, but I’ll just have to settle for spraying water on it. If the reproofing hasn’t worked then I’m going to have to find the time and money to get a new one before I go.
I’ve also reproofed my walking boots and bought some snow boots. I’m thinking about getting a new backpack before I go too. My current one has been held together with duct tape since the Great Glen Way, so I do need one. But I was going to wait until Easter when I go to Germany and then check out Deuter packs. As it’s a German brand there’s so much more choice there.
I’ve played a bit with my new camera and tripod, but not nearly enough. I didn’t take it out yesterday as I thought I would be walking with the group and so didn’t want to be faffing about. As it happened I could have got some great practice in.
I’ve bought the Rough Guide to Iceland and had a quick look through it, but I don’t think it’s as good as the Lonely Planet I used 2½ years ago. So maybe I’ll take both. I still have to decide on reading material. I’m envisaging spending a lot of time sitting in Reykjavik’s wonderful coffee shops, relaxing and reading.
The hostel has emailed me to inform me of their reception’s Christmas opening hours and to ask what time I’m expecting to arrive. As I should arrive during their opening hours that’s straightforward. At some point this week I need to renew my travel insurance and book the Northern Lights tour. Then of course I need to pack. And do the million and one other things that need to be done with my house, work and Christmas before I can actually go on holiday.
Iran has been in the headlines again this week. Firstly because of the attack on the British Embassy in Tehran, and then because of the Iranian diplomats in Britain being given 24 hours to leave the country. The attack on the embassy in Tehran seems to have been a terrifying ordeal for those inside. They say the police stood by and allowed the ‘students’ to carry out the attack. If the police were standing by does this mean the attack was condoned (or even instigated) by the government? The Iranian foreign secretary (I think) did apologise, but how genuine was this apology?
Britain sending the Iranian diplomats back to their country seems a bit tit for tat (though in a much nicer and less terifying way). Yes, we’re making a point, but what is it really going to achieve? It just seems to me that the situation could be much more easily resolved in our favour if we kept them here. For starters, if Iran is such a threat then surely we need people on the ground there to keep an eye on things for us. How is that going to happen, if we have no ambassador or other embassy personnel there? If we allowed the Iranian officials to remain here, the path of safely returning diplomats to Iran would be much simpler and quicker.
When I went to Russia in the mid-1980s it was the time of the cold war and Russia was the most misunderstood and least known country on the planet. Everyone thought they knew all kinds of things about the USSR, but as most of their knowledge and perceptions came from American spy films and propaganda, much of what they thought was wrong. When I told people where I was going their reaction would either be one of disbelief or one of fear and paranoia. “But what if they don’t let you out?” was a question I was asked all too often.
These days it seems like Iran is the new Soviet Union. Most people have never met anyone from there or anyone who has been there, let alone thought of going there themselves. The presiding image of Iran in most people’s minds is of crowds chanting “Death to America” whilst burning American flags. When I mention to people that it is one of the countries I would most like to go to, and indeed when I told people I was actually booked on a trip to travel around Iran (it was cancelled as there weren’t enough people on it, so I never actually got to go) their reaction is similar to what the reaction was back in the ’80s when I went to Russia. Yet whenever I speak to anyone who has travelled there, or read of anyone’s travels through Iran they always speak so highly of the country and its people, saying it’s one of the friendliest most welcoming places they have been. As usual it seems to be the politicians who are setting the international tone for their country and doing their own people a great injustice by creating such a negative perception of them.
My dream of going to Iran could be further away than ever now as I doubt there’ll be many visas issued to British passport holders for the forseeable future.
Will the Japanese really give away 10,000 free flights?
I just came across a rumour that Japan is planning to give away 10,000 free flights as a way of attracting visitors back after the earthquake and tsunami. If this giveaway happens, it’s thought it will begin in April. I was thinking of going to the Outer Hebrides next summer, but if I could get a free flight to Japan I’ll definitely go there instead.
I came across these questions and answers in Alastair Humphrey’s blog and they got me thinking about what my responses would be. It’ll be interesting for me to look back on them in a year or two’s time and see if my answers are still the same.
Mountain/ocean/jungle/desert – which are you? I like all of them for different reasons. It’s too hard to call.
What was your first great travel experience? Either going on a college trip to Russia back in the 1980s when it was still hidden behind the iron curtain, or interrailing around Europe for a month. I did both with the same friend within the space of a few months and I’m not sure which came first.
Favourite journey? Travelling overland through Africa using of mix of walking and hitching with the occasional bit of public transport thrown in.
Top five places worldwide? Unst, Shetland; Sydney; Zaire (or the Democratic Republic of Congo as it’s known now); Iceland; London
Name a special place to stay. In my tent on the grass in front of the youth hostel in Uyeasound, Unst. It’s peaceful and I can while away the evenings sitting in the conservatory at the back of the hostel chatting to interesting people and watching the sun go down and distant lights come on across the water.
What three items do you always pack? Decent coffee, something to read and a toilet roll.
Which passport stamp are you proudest of? The USSR
Which passport stamp would you most like to have? Antarctica
What is your guilty travel pleasure? Good coffee – either making my own or finding a really good coffee shop like the minuscule Cafe Haiti in Reykjavik
Which do you prefer: window or aisle? Window
Who is your ideal travelling companion? I like to travel alone and meet people as I go.
Best meal on the road? And your worst? Best – a little breeze block and cardboard cafe called ‘Stop n Eat’ in a suburb of Nairobi. It served the best cabbage in the world. Worst – Communist Russia back in the 1980s. They had no concept of vegetarianism and so all I got to eat was coleslaw. As the other people in the group didn’t like their coleslaw they would give theirs to me. All I had to eat for the best part of a fortnight was a big plate of coleslaw twice a day. It took a few years before I could even look at it again.
Most surprising place? And your most disappointing? Surprising – most recently was Minehead. I was there earlier this year when I walked some of the South West Coast Path. I was just expecting it to be tacky, but it really wasn’t bad. The train station area is really nice and I found a lovely cafe for lunch. Disappointing – I’ve never really been disappointed with a place. I can usually find something to interest or intrigue me no matter where I am.
Where do you NOT want to go? Although there are places that aren’t high on my list, there’s nowhere I wouldn’t want to go to given half the chance.
Who/what inspired you to travel? I’ve always had itchy feet. Ever since I can remember I’ve always loved holidays, days out, etc, and would cry when I had to come home.
Any travel heroes? The travel heroes that have inspired me the most are the ordinary people doing extraordinary things that I’ll sometimes be fortunate enough to meet when I’m travelling.
What do you listen to on the road? I don’t take music with me, so either the sounds of nature, or whatever music is being played in local cafes and shops.
Does any song take you back to a particular place? Bob Marley takes me straight back to my kibbutz days in the late 80s.
What do you read when you travel? Books with a connection to the place: factual books about the place; novels set in the place; books written by someone from the place.
Is there a person you met while travelling who reaffirmed your faith in humanity? Lots and lots. And hopefully some of them have felt the same way about me!
What’s the most impressive/useful phrase you know in a foreign language? patatje oorlog met uitjes – it’s my favourite junk food in the Netherlands. This is the colloquial term for it and so I like to think it makes me sound like a local 🙂
What is your worst habit as a traveller? Bad habits? Me? Never!
Snowbound in a tent in Antarctica, how would you entertain your companions? Sharing stories.
When and where in your travels have you been happiest? Lots of places, but over the last few years in Unst in Shetland. I feel so relaxed there.
What smell most says ‘travel’ to you? Smoke from the fires at roadside stalls. I think it’s why I like lapsang souchong tea so much. The smell just takes me straight to Africa.
Given a choice, what era would you travel in? It has to be a place as well as an era. Kenya, particularly Nairobi, in the 1920s.
If you could combine three cities to make your perfect metropolis, which would they be? The bustle and internationalism of London with the look of Sydney and the vibe of Reykjavik.
Time is running out to get the mailboat to St Helena.
St Helena is an island in the middle of the Atlantic miles from anywhere. It’s so isolated it was considered a good place for Napoleon to live out his days after his capture. As small islands interest me it’s only to be expected that this should be somewhere I’d like to go. What makes this particular island even more fascinating however, is the journey it takes to get there. There is no airport. Not even a tiny airstrip the like of which can be found on islands like Foula or Skerries. So the only way there is by boat. There is a mailboat service that runs from the UK to South Africa and stops at St Helena en route to deliver goods and mail and this mail boat takes passengers. It’s something I’d love to do and depending on what the mail boat is really like I might be able to kill two birds with one stone and get both the ‘visit St Helena’ challenge and the ‘travel on a cargo ship’ challenge ticked off in the one go.
I’ve just read that the mail boat is making its final journey from the UK. It will still go to St Helena, but only on return trips to South Africa. And the idea of building an airstrip has been resurrected (it gets talked about every few years and then ends up on the back burner again). So if I want to go to St Helena by mailboat I have to try to do it before 2015 which is when the talk says they will have the airstrip. If the plans go ahead this time, then no doubt this will spell the end for mail boat.
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.
