Shetland Islands

EPIC EPIC WEEK.
Im doing a two part post to cover everything without confusing myself. So brace yourselves for a lot of photos.

So, the Shetland Islands ,for those not familiar with Scottish geography, are a groups of 100 islands north of Scotland that are closer to Bergen than Glasgow. A long long way a way. They were porperty of Norway and Denmark for a long time but then were acquired by Scotland in 1669. So the Shetlanders don't really consider themsleves Scottish. They also dont really speak English. Ok, well, technichally they do but it is a very strong accent with a very absurd dialect. Eg- "Do kens da wy" meaning a general term of agreeance. Very difficult to understand. Lyalls mum was pretty much speaking a foreign language the whole time as far as Jacqui and I could tell.

I went up with my friend Jacqui - from Melbourne - and her flatmate Lyall who is a born and bred Sheltlander. Such a sweet deal because we stayed with Lyall's parents, Lorraine and Douglas, who fed us the most incredible food. Orkney fudge cheese cake, and another cake that was like a mud cake and a pavalova's love child. Oh man. That women could open a shop.

To get to the Shetlands, you can fly but its very expensive, so most people take the ferry. Which leaves from Aberdeen. The granite city. Look on a map. Aberdeen is not close to the Shetlands. The ferry takes 14 hours. The ferry on the way up was so much fun though. We met a couple of guys that Lyall vaguely knew called Mikey and Neil, and we sat in the bar drinking beer and whisky until about 3 in the morning. Good times. And there were a bunch of accordian and bagpipe players on board who were heading up for the festival to entertain us. The accordians were ok (Mikey and I did a lovely rendition of the Rattlin Bog for everyone) but the bagpipes wore a bit thin. It might have been ok if they hadnt been standing right next to us. I managed to capture Jacqui's expression when they first started playing.


This is Jacqui and Lyall on the ferry.


So we arrived at about 7am - it was still dark. We went to Lyalls house which is in rural Shetland about 20mins from Lerwick which is the main town. (Or the 'toon').
This is the view from their lounge window.


There are no trees in Shetland. It makes the landscape so barren. And means the wind is always intense. Its so beautiful though - like nothing Ive ever seen before. There are heaps of beaches and islands off the coast. So cool.

We found some shetland ponies! Such odd looking creatures. I made friends with the ginger one but then it licked my hand and gave me a fright.



Then we went a took a tour of an archeological site that was once a viking settlement. It was a group of houses around a 'broch' - there's heaps of them on the Shetlands, they are for signalling - like in Lord of the Rings when they set fire to those things to get a message to Gondor. Anyway, it was really cool. You could see all this Viking and Pict DIY - it was pretty well preserved considering it dated to 200AD. Only the bases of the houses were left but still, RIDICULOUS!
This is a not very good photo of one of the houses.


Heres another picture of Shetland. We drove all over the South end of the main island. It was pretty spectacular.


That night we went into Lerwick to see a friend of Mikey and Lyalls play a Nirvana tribute in one of the pubs. Such an odd thing to have experienced. As Jacqui said - weirdest Australia Day ever.

The gig didnt go that well really, some of the oldies asked them to turn it down. Generally quite amusing.

So that was day one. Going to write a seperate entry for day two. It needs it.