27.09.2011 – 27.09.2011  14 °C

We spent our day today driving right up to the northern most point of the Shetlands (and the UK) Hermanesse National Park. As per usual we had a leisurely start before jumping in the car (armed with morning tea and lunch—we learnt our lesson yesterday) and starting the surprisingly long drive right up to the northern most island and the northern most point of the Shetlands. To get to Unst (the northern most island) we had to also pass through Yell (another island) so we had two tastes at using the local car ferries. Considering we are in the back end of nowhere the ferries run every 30min or so, so we didn’t have to wait too long at each terminal.

On the way we did our usual stop and look for Otters (still no luck) as well as stopping to see some of the other ‘notable’ sites on our way. Point in fact was our lunch stop today. We ate lunch at the foot of the ‘haunted house’ (which didn’t look super haunted but was in pretty poor repair—and isn’t a tourist attraction even though it is one of the ‘main’ things to do in the Shetlands…..) again it was pouring with rain so our lunch was eaten inside the car.. great picnic huh? The other interesting thing we discovered today is leisure centres. As I mentioned yesterday, many of these ‘towns’ are actually just a house or two and maybe a knit wear shop (knit wear shops seem to be all the rage), so I was quite surprised to discover that most towns have a leisure centre. These centres appear to be indoor basketball courts and maybe a swimming pool and there is at least one on every island (sometimes a couple!!)… now considering the population of each island numbers in the hundreds it seems like overkill to have such good sporting facilities!! I guess this is where the UK tax payer’s money is going to—very small island community centres!!! One thing I do have to say is that I’m not complaining purely because they are open and have toilets and when you need to go………..

We finally reached the northerly most point, the Hermanesse National Park. This is home to Puffins and many other sea birds and also has the most northerly lighthouse in the UK. Today it was raining, windy and cold and the visitor centre was closed for the winter. The time was creeping on to 3pm and to get to the northerly most point we needed to hike a couple of miles. I wasn’t feeling well today (very hot and a headache) so I begged off on the trip and we decided to turn around and return to the digs. As it turned out this proved to be a good idea because it still took us til after 7pm to get home (we spent 40mins playing eye spy at one of the ferry terminals on the way back!) So, unfortunately, we spent another fruitless day looking for puffins and otters…….