25.09.2011 – 25.09.2011  15 °C

V early start today as I had to catch the 8.30 bus from London to make it to Luton Airport on time for the flight. Like all buses we were running late so I think I just made the check in cut off! After check in we had the usual wait for ever to get through security and even with us not stopping for a break we only just made the gate on time!

Flight to Aberdeen was uneventful and then we had a three hour wait on the ground for our connecting flight to the Shetlands. We settled in to a hardy English lunch (chicken pie for me, fish and chips for Scott) before we got on our flight for Sumburgh Airport on the main island of the Shetlands. We boarded this tiny prop driven plane for the 1 and a bit hour flight to the Shetland Islands. (The plane reminded me of the small ones that go in and out of Kempsey airport for Sydney!!)

Touched down and found our rent a car and set off to look for our accom. Sumburgh airport is on the southern tip of the island and our accom is about a third of the way up the island so about 40min later we arrived at our accommodation. The landscape is quite interesting here on the island—rolling hills that seem to be devoid of trees.. just small stunted bushes and what looks like heather? Fences don’t seem to be too popular and it seems that the local sheep are free to wander where they will! Could make for some hairy driving!!! The main road goes up via the coast (well it seems that the island isn’t really that big so I guess all of the roads follow the coasts!!) and our accom is this nice house overlooking a small rocky bay.. should be good for some exploring tomorrow!

After putting in our stuff we headed further up the island to the town of Lerwick (the capital of the Shetlands) to get some supplies. The town is quite small (maybe a thousand or two?) and all of the buildings are made out of this grey stone- not sure what type- with grey slate roofs. It clearly is and was a shipping village with large trawlers parked in the bay. Today I understand that the town is the main port for some of the north sea oil tankers so I guess oil is now the main industry on the island. After driving around the town (which took us less than 10 mins) we grabbed ourselves some indian take out for dinner and headed back to our digs for dinner and a well deserved sleep!