Shetland
Terry Marsh travels to the UK’s most northerly spot
www.terrymarsh.com
I
recently did the unthinkable.
I went to Shetland. In winter…
…and I’m very much looking
forward to repeating the
experience.
To be fair, I had no choice over
the winter-thing; I wanted to
see Up Helly Aa, the Viking fi re
festival, and that’s always held on
the last Tuesday of January. By all
accounts it’s also always wet, or
wettish. We were lucky; it rained
as we drove from our cottage at
Walls in the west, but as soon as
we parked up (at the ‘Sorry, we’re
closed for the evening’ late-night
Tesco supermarket) and bid cheery
good wishes to the weather-
proofed policeman on traffi c duty,
the rain stopped, and didn’t return
at all that week.
Having visited Lerwick in the
morning for the day-time parade,
we were excited about what lay
ahead, and took our strategic
place near the burning fi eld along
with several hundred children.
Admittedly, many of the ‘children’
were in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and, in
my case, 70s.
It was brilliant. If I didn’t need
to drive for an hour to get back to
the cottage, we would have joined
in the subsequent Viking-themed
celebrations in one of the many
halls. From what I’m told, they
are…jolly…and can last a long time,
not that everyone remembers.
I fi rst got to know Shetland
when I visited in the 1990s to
research for a radio feature and
found myself returning not long
afterwards to work on my book
The Magic of Scottish Islands. I can
still recall that when I asked Jon
14 Outdoor focus | spring 2019
Sparks if he would like to take on
the photographic content of the
book, he delayed for a full three
nanoseconds before making his
mind up…I was on the point of
asking someone else!
To the north lies Out Stack,
the northernmost point of
the British Isles...
This splendid subarctic
archipelago lies around 110 miles
north of the Scottish mainland,
comprises about 100 islands, of
which only 16 or so are inhabited,
and has a coastline more than
1,600 miles long. The ‘Mainland’
(the third largest Scottish island)
straddles the 60° North latitude,
and on clear nights this makes
Shetland ideal for viewing the
Northern Lights, the Aurora
Borealis.
Among the uninhabited islands
is Mousa, known for the Broch of
Mousa, the fi nest Iron Age broch in
Britain (and the best-maintained
in the world). Noss, a short dinghy
ride to the east of Bressay, has
been a national nature reserve
since 1955, and its east-facing
cliff s, where thousands of sea birds
nest, comes as quite a surprise. On
the west coast, St Ninian’s Isle, is a
small tied island connected by the
largest active tombolo in the UK,
and dedicated to Shetland’s patron
saint, the mysterious Saint Ninian
of Galloway.
To the north lies Out Stack, the
northernmost point of the British
Isles, to which I was lured by a
late W. R. ‘Bill’ Mitchell book It’s
a Long Way to Muckle Flugga and
tales of a lonely black-browed
albatross that was resident here
for years. Go in the breeding
season and this is very much a