The wind was starting to wane when we pulled into Lerwick at around 7:30am. Waiting to disembark, chatted with 4 old-bloke cyclists who I’d seen yesterday. They were going to pedal up to Baltasound where I was staying too. They took off north but I moseyed around Lerwick for a bit –
Lerwick dates from the 1600s -
An old-school town, nothing was open on this Sunday morning -
Owned by Norway for ages, they gave the Shetlands to Scotland in the 1400s as part of a royal dowry –
Not knowing what the fuel availability was like further north, I brimmed it on the way out of town. The old tank bag, on its last legs for a few days, decided to break its attaching-zip here so it got binned
. A pain, as my good camera now had to go into a back pack where it was a lot more inaccessible for a quick shot
.
Headed north then took a western turnoff after seeing a small sign advertising a bike museum, which I never found
. So wound up in Weisdale –
(and there was, later
) -
Weisdale from the hill out of town -
Onto the B9071 -
Rejoined the main road north at Voe. Some surprisingly large vistas around here. Frora Ness, lots of fish-farms surrounding it –
The road ends at the ferry station at Toft. Bought a ticket here, which covered all the remaining ferries
and defaults to a return (“everyone comes back", the VFR750 owning deckhand told me
) –
The deckhand also told me the next ferry, which goes to the northern most island of Unst, left in 40mins so (ahem
) hotfooted up the great road across the island of Yell, to Gutcher, and managed to squeeze on in between two large trailers loaded with furniture. An advantage of a bike
-
Offloading at Belmont, on Unst, was a nice feeling. Getting close to the main aim of the trip now
. Went up its only main road, the A896.
Into Baltasound, dropped my panniers at the hotel and got changed into hiking gear. The hotel is more than a bit like Fawlty Towers. Quirky ! –
Further up the A896 is Haroldswick and its Viking ship replica, just sitting beside the road, no signs, gates, entrance fees, etc
-
The natives -
Tricky navigation from here with few signs and with roads as wide as driveways so I arrived at someone’s house at one point
!
Through Norwick -
Then seemingly rode through a farmers yard to find the road to Skaw
-
This strip of road, Holsens Road, leading down to the solitary farm at Skaw, is the northernmost piece of tarmac in Britain
-
It stops at Skaw. There is no more
–
Cracking little beach. Next stop is the North Pole -
Good use of an old boat -
Walked out to the point, where there's the remains of a WW2 radar station -
Then got back on the VFR and for the first time in a fortnight, started heading properly south. Felt a bit sad actually :???: -
More to come . . .