Shetland part 3: Eshaness, Bressay and leaving on a jet plane

I can't believe it has been such a long time since I last updated you on my holiday. Sorry folks, truth is I've been teaching myself to knit thanks to YouTube, so I've not made a great deal of time to finish of my tales of Shetland. It seems like such a long time ago now.

Anyway, Wednesday was really the only day we had there when the weather was pretty grim. It had stormed through the night, and my word that was an almighty storm, 2 inches of rain fell in the night and caused issues on some of the islands roads. Nonetheless, we had plans for the day, so we wrapped up and set off to Eshaness. It was quite a long drive through the north mainland, Brae and Voe and all the other villages, and the weather was changeable but we were determined to get up and see the imposing lava cliffs. We got up there, parked the car up and went walking up a hill for a good vantage point. At the peak of the hill the clouds opened, it was rain like you wouldn't believe and whilst we made a mad dash for the car, we were truly soaked by the time we got back into it.

That night was had planned to meet our friends at a pub in Lerwick for live local music. In the course of the day though they called us and invited us to spend the evening at their house in Bressay, which is one of the islands, but very close to Lerwick by ferry. We rushed home and got our overnight bags together and got ready, before meeting them in Lerwick for a gorgeous curry in Raba, and then a night of listening to fantastic local Shetland music. The bar was really buzzing, and our friend was playing her mandolin. Shetland is a very musical place, it's great. Then it was time to catch the 7 minute ferry to isle of Bressay.

Thursday morning we woke up to a lovely clear morning on Bressay. After reviving ourselves with coffee and fresh fruit salad hubby and I set off in the car to explore the island, heading out towards Noss sound where we did a bit of otter spotting, in between being attacked my the midges we were disturbing in the soft heather. We were lucky, we managed to spot a couple of otters, but alas it wasn't long before they spotted us and scarpered.

Otter spotting at Noss sound

Back at the house there was a lovely breakfast waiting for us (although after one too many Guiness the night before I wasn't really up to the spread), and then we all went out for a lovely walk through the fields with Alfie the dog (not our Alfie, our friend's Alfie) who bounded off in search of wild rabbits while we admired the scenery and got a bit more of an understanding of what some of the structures in the fields were. After a trip up to a fantastic vantage point where you could see the whole of Lerwick, it was time to say our goodbyes and head back on the ferry to the mainland.

That night was all about packing for our flight home, via Glasgow, the next day. We were so sad to pack away all of our belongings and bid adieu to the friends we had made there. Friday morning we left a sunny Shetlands behind us as we trudged off to the airport, the highlight of the day was when we were going through security and heard our names being called behind us, it was a lovely new friends coming to wave us off.

Shetland is a beautiful place. It's not just the tremendous scenery and the wildlife but the wonderful people. We will be back to Shetland just as soon as we can, but for now we have our memories of a wonderful break in a wonderful place.

I hope we're back one day to see the Shetland ponies