Day 39: 17th March – Land Ahoy – Na rathaidean fada, lùbach tro Chuimrigh agus Alba

Today’s trivia is on the Shetlands:

It is not “The Shetlands”: It is simply called Shetland or the Shetland Islands. Probably a bit like the silent ‘p’ in Rick!.
Vikings colonized Shetland in the 9th century, leaving a strong Norse legacy.
Shetland likely derives from the Old Norse words hjalt (“hilt”) and land (“land”).
The main island is called Mainland. It is closer to Norway (approx. 370km/230 miles) than to London (approx. 965km/600 miles).
It contains the UK’s most northerly inhabited island (Unst), lighthouse (Muckle Flugga), and site (Skaw).
Shetland has the highest density of otters in Europe.
Shetland Ponies are small, strong ponies (28–42 inches high) and evolved from ponies that crossed ice fields after the last ice age.

Last night’s travels on the high seas . . .

Pretty smooth sailing 🙏🙏🙏🙏 with a stop at Kirkwall

It was a smooth sailing based on a dinner of fish and chips, two baileys and two sea sickness tablets.

Straight off the boat and we headed south.

but got stopped by a plane landing. There’s a lot of walkie talkies going on between my mate and control tower. There’s maybe 2min between closing gate and plane landing. Very relaxed about it other than I had not be on air side.

Had a good chat to the lollipop man who asked why’d we come to Shetland. I said, why do you live here? I got that familiar blank look.

Moving right along, we ended up at Sumburgh Head Lighthouse where we were too early for the museum, come visitor centre but we walked around and managed to spot a Tammie Norrie along with a few other winged animals . . .

Next port of call was the Jarlshof Prehistoric and Norse Settlement.

At Jarlshof you can see the various villages over time being built somewhat on top of each other . . .

More elaborate and larger dwellings constructed with wells using a.more.rwfined construction . . .

and finally, the 1500s Lairds house, . . .

We got stopped by my mate again. This time for a helicopter coming in via runway lights due to very low cloud cover . . .

Then it was off to Quindale Mill, initially for a wee 🚽 stop, but looked around the museum . . .

The real McCoy . . .

Moving right along, we found ourselves at St Ninian’s Church dating back to 1200s. The parking was free, the walk across the spit was free and the Church entry was free too, and there was no charity box either, HGiT . . .

Lots of chargers in town but lots not working, super slow, like I mean, I could swim to main land in the time to charge the car or ID number is illegible so can’t use as not tap-and-go. Finally found a super fast charger (Shetland standard of super, not mainland) at 50kW but was lucky to get max 38kW for a bit, even with me being the only one using it. The good thing is that shetland is pretty small. Mainland from where we are staying is 41 mile north and 27 miles south and otherall for main group of islands is 85 miles, 140 odd ks. Nothing for us Aussies.

We took the easy option for dinner, 200m away at The Dowry. Super full but they squeezed us in. Excellent dinner and drinks . . .

The Espresso Bountini (Coconut oil-washed vodka, espresso, Tia Maria, chocolate bitters, and sugar) wasn’t bad and about 12 were made in a very short period of time, not for me!

We liked the food that we decided to come on Sunday, asked if we can book table for two. Sorry, we close at 5pm on Sunday (turns out most places do). So now Monday. But what I did like was the waiter giving suggestions for other places⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. Two of which were on my watch already. Having no mobile access, so we drove to each restuarant and booked in person just incase can’t get in.

Hotel may be a a fizzer. Annette said there’s no hot water. I said harden up my darling, that water must be at least 25°C. Plus room heating is poor, no fridge, no water, mattress is undersized for base, no room service unless ask. Of you want more coffee (😱), biscuits, towels etc they are waiting for you at reception on a.self serve basis. That should have been a warning of what was to come when we checked in. Well it is only ⭐️⭐️⭐️ and that’s Shetland’s rating, which doesn’t lend much credit as town services on offshore rig works, space port and other high end industrial works.

Manager was apologetic on hot water. Came to look. Next door was better so gave us a kettle to use bath/shower but too late for Annette.