Category: Travel

Interesting people

It’s so easy to meet inspiring and unconventional people when you travel.

I love the way I meet some really interesting people when I travel. My recent stay in Reykjavik was no exception. There were a few people staying in the youth hostel who, like myself, were there for a week or two over the Christmas and New Year period. This meant we could get to know each other quite well.
There was a South African guy who was so friendly he seemed to have got to know everyone in Reyjavik, not just the hostel. He was planning to hitch-hike round the ring road which pretty much follows the coast right the way round Iceland. I used public buses to do this in summer a couple of years ago and so know how desolate this road can be. In the middle of winter with short daylight hours and the most snow in a generation or two, it would be really isolated. Did this put him off? Of course not. With a backpack and an Icelandic woolly hat he set off. I never heard how he got on, but I don’t doubt he will have been fine.
A twenty-something French woman was staying in Reykjavik whilst planning her next move. She’d lived on and off in Iceland over the past few years, always thinking it would be the last time, but always ending up back. Most recently she’d been working on a farm. She spoke Icelandic and had a learnt a lot about the culture. She was considering going to live somewhere remote in Scotland for a while as she hated busy places. Reykjavik was a busy place in her eyes. She was also extremely environmentally conscious and tried not to fly unless it was absoloutely necessary. I moan about the price of flights but it was surprising how much more expensive it is to travel by land and water.
There were also a couple of Canadian guys. One was also really into the environment and worked as a ranger in Canada. He’d heard of an Icelandic MP who was a keen environmentalist and had added her as a facebook friend. This being Iceland, she had a normal page rather than a ‘like’ page and accepted him. They’d chatted back and forth and he’d met her last year when he’d come to Iceland. They met up again this time. What other country would that happen in? He’d also got to go backstage at a Sigur Ros concert last time as he just happened to meet them too.
The other Canadian worked as a gardener during the summer months and spent the winters travelling. He’d already been to a few places this winter and was planning on visiting his father in Central America after Iceland.

These are just a few of the people I met, but they all had really interesting stories to tell. Meeting people like this always inspires me to think about what’s really important in life and not to get bogged down in the nitty gritty of everyday life and work. Easier said than done of course, once I’m back at work and have so many demands on my time. But I’ll keep thinking about the interesting people I meet and hopefully this will motivate me not to get stuck back in a rut.

Laxness Museum

A mission in the snow led to a house I could’ve moved right into.

Going here was a real mission. Halldor Laxness is Iceland’s best known writer, probably because he won the Nobel Prize for Literature, which I suppose says a lot. I’ve only read one of his books so far, but I loved it and do want to read more. As well as liking him as an author, the reviews of this museum were good and as I love having a nosey round other people’s houses … well, it just had to be done.

I’d checked the opening times of the museum online, so I only needed to know how to get there as it’s quite far out of Reykjavik. When I asked for directions in the tourist office, the woman behind the desk said ‘well, first you need to rent a car, then …’ She didn’t continue as she’d seen my look of dismay. Even if I could afford car rental, there would be no way I’d drive in this amount of snow!

So then she said, ‘let me check in case I’m being too pessimistic’. A few minutes later she’d come up with a plan for me. I had to get one bus way out of the city and then get a connecting bus that left only five minutes after the first bus was due to arrive, so it would all be a bit fine-cut, but possible.

On the day, I wanted to be sure of nothing going wrong so called in at the bus station an hour and a half before the first bus was due to leave. I checked my plans with the lady in the ticket office and what a good job I did. Because it is winter and not many people go to the Laxness Museum, the second bus only runs if it is booked at least an hour in advance. She phoned for me and booked both my outward and return journeys. As the buses are only every four hours I was going to have a long time at this museum. I was hoping for a little coffee shop I could sit in and read and write my journal.

The first bus arrived on time and got me to the required stop right on schedule. I shouldn’t really expect any less from Icelandic buses. Even in this weather everything seems to run like clockwork. There was a taxi waiting at the bus stop, with two people sitting in the back. The bus station lady had said something about the bus being a taxi, but I thought she meant some kind of minibus taxi. No, the bus was an actual taxi.

The bus/taxi driver dropped me at the last stop which was a few minutes walk from the actual house. It was bitterly cold and the snow was really deep and difficult to walk through. By the time I got to the house my fingers were numb even though I was wearing fleecy gloves. I wasn’t looking forward to hanging around the bus stop for long on the way back.

The house is large and white and Laxness lived there with his wife and children for most of his life. His wife, who was younger than him, is still alive but lives in a home in Reykjavik. There are wonderful views of hills and fields on all sides. In the garden to the side is a small swimming pool. The steam rising from the geothermally heated water made it look so inviting; an oasis in the snow.

The house was so homely inside, I could really imagine living there and curling up on one of the sofas with a good book. There were so many things that I would like in a house of my own if I could have one big enough. The hallway had a grandfather clock and an old chest; the living room had a grand piano, an egg chair, and large array of cacti and other tropical plants (they looked incongruous but good against the snowy background!); the dining room had a table to seat twelve and a samovar; the bedrooms had plenty of bookshelves; the study was lined with books, had a couple of desks (a tall one that Laxness would stand at to write, and a regular one at which his wife would sit to type up his manuscripts), and piles of papers; and there was a small library, basically what would be the box room in any other house, but in this one it was lined with books. Throughout the house was an art collection of mostly modern works and a collection of artefacts gathered from trips around the world.

I walked round the house listening to the audio guide and then went round twice more just looking and trying to absorb the place. I wasn’t allowed to take photos inside the house, but plenty can be found here on the museum’s website.

Once I could tear myself away, I walked round the garden and then watched a short video in the ticket office. One of the ladies working in the museum was finishing work and offered me a lift back to the bus stop where I could catch one of the regular buses back into Reykjavik. As there was no coffee shop for me to sit in and wait another 2 or so hours until the taxi bus was due, I gratefully accepted and she phoned to cancel the taxi bus for me. If the weather had been different I would have easily passed the time going for a walk and exploring the area, but it would have been foolhardy in conditions like this when I would have no idea what the ground was like that I was walking on because of the thick layer of snow.

Even though it’s a real trek out of town, this is somewhere I will come to again the next time I’m in Iceland.

I wrote this review of Laxness’ best known novel, ‘Independent People’.

Iceland

I’m loving watching the sunrise whilst swimming in steam and snow.

I love my snowboots. My feet have so been so warm and dry in all this snow. the only problem with them is when I sink deeper than my knees. Would it have been possible to get thigh-high snowboots?

I love my new camera too. It takes amazing pictures and makes it all so easy. Even in the dark (which it is most of the time here) I don’t need a tripod – it just focuses and then remembers what the image looks like whilst it does the long exposure thing. So I’m not getting any blurry photos. Wowee.

I haven’t seen the Northern Lights yet, as each evening so far the trip out of the city to see them has been cancelled. It only runs when there’s a good chance of seeing them. But I have plenty of time left yet.

What have I done so far? Well, yesterday morning I went outdoor swimming in the pool next to the hostel. I started by sitting in the first hot pot I came to as my bare feet were freezing fast as I walked over the icy ground the 2 metres to the pool. It was so warm. There was even a floating chess set bobbing about on it, so I suppose people really do spend hours in them.

I stayed in this hot pot until it was infiltrated by young children having a snowball fight. The Icelandic version of water polo perhaps? Then I switched to the main swimming pool which was cooler, but still a good temperature. I couldn’t see how big the pool was because it was dark and the rising steam made it really misty. So visibility was down to about zero. I kept swimming round corners and bends and discovering more and more pool. Or maybe I was just swimming in tight circles and thought I was discovering new bits. At one point I swam under a bridge and discovered an elderly people’s exercise class going on in one of the lanes.

Once I’d had enough of swimming I sat in a different hot pot – one with bends, corners and alcoves and watched the sun beginning to rise through the fir trees. It got slightly above the horizon which is about the best to be hoped for at this time of year. It gets light around 11am and is dark again well before 5pm.

Í’ve also been drinking lots of good coffee whilst I’ve been here. I think Icelandic coffee is second only to Dutch coffee. It’s dark and strong and doesn’t come in a bucket. Last time I was here I discovered a new little coffee shop called Cafe Haiti. It’s run by a woman who is one of only two Haitians in Iceland. She imports the coffee from Haiti and roasts it herself. When I got home I wrote a review of it on Trip Advisor. The first day I was here I saw an advert for Cafe Haiti in one of the free tourist papers. It was quoting a customer who said they’d gone to Cafe Haiti because of a review they’d read on Trip Advisor and it really was as good as the review said. I’ve since seen the same ad in several other places. As far as I’m aware I’m the only person who’s written a review on Trip Advisor so I must be the reviewer the advert is referring to. Does this make me famous? Or at least semi-famous? Even though no-one knows who I am. I’m glad my review (if it is mine – I will have to check when I’m not paying for internet) has done her some good. I’ve been back today and she is now in bigger premises.

Getting ready for Iceland

There’s so much still to do before I go to Iceland.

I’m so busy at school at the moment I feel like I still have so much to do to prepare for Iceland and I’m not getting time to do it. It’s a week today that I go. I keep thinking about clothes. It’s going to be cold – even if the temperature hovers around zero the wind could make it feel a lot colder. And it’s going to rain. Vertically, horizontally, diagonally, it’s going to rain. I’d thought about getting a really good winter jacket such as a down jacket, but it seems the jackets that are made for warmth aren’t particularly waterproof. Down in particular, is really not recommended for wet weather, though it’s the warmest thing out there. So I’m just going to have to layer up underneath my waterproof jacket. The problem with that is that there’s only so much I can fit underneath it whilst still being able to move. I’ve just invested in some new thermal leggings and vests and I tried them out yesterday. They are very thin, but kept me really snug, so that’s a partial solution.


I’ve just reproofed my jacket. Last weekend the rain soaked right through so I knew it had to be done. I could have done with some rain this weekend to test it now it’s been reproofed, but I’ll just have to settle for spraying water on it. If the reproofing hasn’t worked then I’m going to have to find the time and money to get a new one before I go.


I’ve also reproofed my walking boots and bought some snow boots. I’m thinking about getting a new backpack before I go too. My current one has been held together with duct tape since the Great Glen Way, so I do need one. But I was going to wait until Easter when I go to Germany and then check out Deuter packs. As it’s a German brand there’s so much more choice there.


I’ve played a bit with my new camera and tripod, but not nearly enough. I didn’t take it out yesterday as I thought I would be walking with the group and so didn’t want to be faffing about. As it happened I could have got some great practice in.


I’ve bought the Rough Guide to Iceland and had a quick look through it, but I don’t think it’s as good as the Lonely Planet I used 2½ years ago. So maybe I’ll take both. I still have to decide on reading material. I’m envisaging spending a lot of time sitting in Reykjavik’s wonderful coffee shops, relaxing and reading.


The hostel has emailed me to inform me of their reception’s Christmas opening hours and to ask what time I’m expecting to arrive. As I should arrive during their opening hours that’s straightforward. At some point this week I need to renew my travel insurance and book the Northern Lights tour. Then of course I need to pack. And do the million and one other things that need to be done with my house, work and Christmas before I can actually go on holiday.

Iran in the news

It just got harder to visit Iran.

Iran has been in the headlines again this week. Firstly because of the attack on the British Embassy in Tehran, and then because of the Iranian diplomats in Britain being given 24 hours to leave the country. The attack on the embassy in Tehran seems to have been a terrifying ordeal for those inside. They say the police stood by and allowed the ‘students’ to carry out the attack. If the police were standing by does this mean the attack was condoned (or even instigated) by the government? The Iranian foreign secretary (I think) did apologise, but how genuine was this apology?

Britain sending the Iranian diplomats back to their country seems a bit tit for tat (though in a much nicer and less terifying way). Yes, we’re making a point, but what is it really going to achieve? It just seems to me that the situation could be much more easily resolved in our favour if we kept them here. For starters, if Iran is such a threat then surely we need people on the ground there to keep an eye on things for us. How is that going to happen, if we have no ambassador or other embassy personnel there? If we allowed the Iranian officials to remain here, the path of safely returning diplomats to Iran would be much simpler and quicker.

When I went to Russia in the mid-1980s it was the time of the cold war and Russia was the most misunderstood and least known country on the planet. Everyone thought they knew all kinds of things about the USSR, but as most of their knowledge and perceptions came from American spy films and propaganda, much of what they thought was wrong. When I told people where I was going their reaction would either be one of disbelief or one of fear and paranoia. “But what if they don’t let you out?” was a question I was asked all too often.

These days it seems like Iran is the new Soviet Union. Most people have never met anyone from there or anyone who has been there, let alone thought of going there themselves. The presiding image of Iran in most people’s minds is of crowds chanting “Death to America” whilst burning American flags. When I mention to people that it is one of the countries I would most like to go to, and indeed when I told people I was actually booked on a trip to travel around Iran (it was cancelled as there weren’t enough people on it, so I never actually got to go) their reaction is similar to what the reaction was back in the ’80s when I went to Russia. Yet whenever I speak to anyone who has travelled there, or read of anyone’s travels through Iran they always speak so highly of the country and its people, saying it’s one of the friendliest most welcoming places they have been. As usual it seems to be the politicians who are setting the international tone for their country and doing their own people a great injustice by creating such a negative perception of them.

My dream of going to Iran could be further away than ever now as I doubt there’ll be many visas issued to British passport holders for the forseeable future.

Free flights to Japan

Will the Japanese really give away 10,000 free flights?

I just came across a rumour that Japan is planning to give away 10,000 free flights as a way of attracting visitors back after the earthquake and tsunami. If this giveaway happens, it’s thought it will begin in April. I was thinking of going to the Outer Hebrides next summer, but if I could get a free flight to Japan I’ll definitely go there instead.

Q&A

Questions and answers about travel.

I came across these questions and answers in Alastair Humphrey’s blog and they got me thinking about what my responses would be. It’ll be interesting for me to look back on them in a year or two’s time and see if my answers are still the same.

Mountain/ocean/jungle/desert – which are you?
I like all of them for different reasons. It’s too hard to call.

What was your first great travel experience?
Either going on a college trip to Russia back in the 1980s when it was still hidden behind the iron curtain, or interrailing around Europe for a month. I did both with the same friend within the space of a few months and I’m not sure which came first.

Favourite journey?
Travelling overland through Africa using of mix of walking and hitching with the occasional bit of public transport thrown in.

Top five places worldwide?
Unst, Shetland; Sydney; Zaire (or the Democratic Republic of Congo as
it’s known now); Iceland; London

Name a special place to stay.
In my tent on the grass in front of the youth hostel in Uyeasound, Unst. It’s peaceful and I can while away the evenings sitting in the conservatory at the back of the hostel chatting to interesting people and watching the sun go down and distant lights come on across the water.

What three items do you always pack?
Decent coffee, something to read and a toilet roll.

Which passport stamp are you proudest of?
The USSR

Which passport stamp would you most like to have?
Antarctica

What is your guilty travel pleasure?
Good coffee – either making my own or finding a really good coffee shop like the minuscule Cafe Haiti in Reykjavik

Which do you prefer: window or aisle?
Window

Who is your ideal travelling companion?
I like to travel alone and meet people as I go.

Best meal on the road? And your worst?
Best – a little breeze block and cardboard cafe called ‘Stop n Eat’ in a suburb of Nairobi. It served the best cabbage in the world.
Worst – Communist Russia back in the 1980s. They had no concept of vegetarianism and so all I got to eat was coleslaw. As the other people in the group didn’t like their coleslaw they would give theirs to me. All I had to eat for the best part of a fortnight was a big plate of coleslaw twice a day. It took a few years before I could even look at it again.

Most surprising place? And your most disappointing?
Surprising – most recently was Minehead. I was there earlier this year when I walked some of the South West Coast Path. I was just expecting it to be tacky, but it really wasn’t bad. The train station area is really nice and I found a lovely cafe for lunch.
Disappointing – I’ve never really been disappointed with a place. I can usually find something to interest or intrigue me no matter where I am.

Where do you NOT want to go?
Although there are places that aren’t high on my list, there’s nowhere I wouldn’t want to go to given half the chance.

Who/what inspired you to travel?
I’ve always had itchy feet. Ever since I can remember I’ve always loved holidays, days out, etc, and would cry when I had to come home.

Any travel heroes?
The travel heroes that have inspired me the most are the ordinary people doing extraordinary things that I’ll sometimes be fortunate enough to meet when I’m travelling.

What do you listen to on the road?
I don’t take music with me, so either the sounds of nature, or whatever music is being played in local cafes and shops.

Does any song take you back to a particular place?
Bob Marley takes me straight back to my kibbutz days in the late 80s.

What do you read when you travel?
Books with a connection to the place: factual books about the place; novels set in the place; books written by someone from the place.

Is there a person you met while travelling who reaffirmed your faith in humanity?
Lots and lots. And hopefully some of them have felt the same way about me!

What’s the most impressive/useful phrase you know in a foreign language?
patatje oorlog met uitjes – it’s my favourite junk food in the Netherlands. This is the colloquial term for it and so I like to think it makes me sound like a local 🙂

What is your worst habit as a traveller?
Bad habits? Me? Never!

Snowbound in a tent in Antarctica, how would you entertain your companions?
Sharing stories.

When and where in your travels have you been happiest?
Lots of places, but over the last few years in Unst in Shetland. I feel so relaxed there.

What smell most says ‘travel’ to you?
Smoke from the fires at roadside stalls. I think it’s why I like lapsang souchong tea so much. The smell just takes me straight to Africa.

Given a choice, what era would you travel in?
It has to be a place as well as an era. Kenya, particularly Nairobi, in the 1920s.

If you could combine three cities to make your perfect metropolis, which would they be?
The bustle and internationalism of London with the look of Sydney and the vibe of Reykjavik.

Mail boat to St Helena

Time is running out to get the mailboat to St Helena.

St Helena is an island in the middle of the Atlantic miles from anywhere. It’s so isolated it was considered a good place for Napoleon to live out his days after his capture. As small islands interest me it’s only to be expected that this should be somewhere I’d like to go. What makes this particular island even more fascinating however, is the journey it takes to get there. There is no airport. Not even a tiny airstrip the like of which can be found on islands like Foula or Skerries. So the only way there is by boat. There is a mailboat service that runs from the UK to South Africa and stops at St Helena en route to deliver goods and mail and this mail boat takes passengers. It’s something I’d love to do and depending on what the mail boat is really like I might be able to kill two birds with one stone and get both the ‘visit St Helena’ challenge and the ‘travel on a cargo ship’ challenge ticked off in the one go.

I’ve just read that the mail boat is making its final journey from the UK. It will still go to St Helena, but only on return trips to South Africa. And the idea of building an airstrip has been resurrected (it gets talked about every few years and then ends up on the back burner again). So if I want to go to St Helena by mailboat I have to try to do it before 2015 which is when the talk says they will have the airstrip. If the plans go ahead this time, then no doubt this will spell the end for mail boat.

I wonder where else I could go by mail boat?

Unst

Gannets, puffins, a lighthouse called Muckle Flugga, a chocolate factory and a brewery: just some of the reasons why Unst is my favourite island.

Sunday 14/8/11
hostel at Uyeasound
The hostel at Uyeasound in Unst.

Unst is one of my favourite places in the world. You can’t get any further north in the UK. There are a couple of rocks further north (Muckle Flugga and Out Stack), but this is the last place that can actually be called a place. Last time I was here, I found it difficult to tear myself away and spent about half of my time on Shetland here. This time I’ve left it till last so I had something to look forward to and so I did get to see other places too.

I’ve been here a couple of days already. The first day was spent doing admin-y type things – finding internet access to book my train tickets for the Great Glen Way (GGW), sending emails, getting petrol, doing a stock-take of my food and working out what I needed to buy for the GGW, and so on.
Yesterday was really stormy. Force 7 winds and rain lashing down until the evening. No-one could really go anywhere, including all the canoeists who are up here for the weekend. We all sat around the hostel watching the waves crash against the shoreline and the tents flap madly in the wind. Once again my little Vango survived brilliantly. There was a similar storm when I was here last year and other people’s much more expensive tents were tearing and had poles snapping. Mine flaps away, but survives without the tiniest shred of a tear or hairline crack of a pole.
Uyeasound after the storm
Calm after the storm.
This morning was beautiful. As predicted, the storm had blown itself out. After breakfast I drove out to Hermaness. This is a nature reserve at the end of the end of the UK. There is a car parking area and a small visitor centre with toilets. This area is known for its birds as well its dramatic views. Because of the birds visitors are requested to stay on the paths and not wander freely across the moorland tops. As it is very, very  boggy it’s much easier to stay on the paths anyway.
I walked about 30 minutes uphill and then across moorland to the cliffs. Once at the cliffs most people head east to see the puffin colony and Muckle Flugga with its lighthouse. As I like to be a bit contrary I walked west. Just a few minutes to the west, where hardly anyone goes, is the most amazing gannetry (gannet colony). I discovered this last year and wanted to go back this year. The dark cliffs look white, they are that stuffed with gannets. The air is full of gannets; the sea is full of bobbing gannets. The noise, the smell, is just pure gannet. Most of my senses felt completely overwhelmed by it. 
gannetry at Hermaness
The gannetry at Hermaness
Only after having my fill of gannets did I walk east. I didn’t see any puffins this year, though I’d probably only just missed them. Last year, I was here a few days earlier and there were puffins everywhere. I’d sat for ages with puffins popping up out of the ground or zooming in to land all around me.
Hermaness and Muckle Flugga
Hermaness with Muckle Flugga in the distance.

I walked further east along the cliffs until I was level with Muckle Flugga. I have to learn to kayak properly so I can actually get there. There were a dozen canoeists on the water today and I watched for a while to see if they would go to Muckle Flugga, but they just seemed to be sticking to the coast.

Leaving the cliffs I headed up and across the moors again on another path that joined with the original path to drop down to the car park.
I finished my day out by going to the chocolate factory for a deluxe experience. A hot chocolate with whipped cream, marshmallows and a chocolate lattice; three Abernathy biscuits partly dipped in dark, milk and white chocolate; two filled chocolates, one dark and one white; and three squares of solid milk, dark and white chocolate. How ideal is this island? It’s isolated, friendly, relaxing, has great wildlife and views AND has its own brewery and chocolate factory. Can you see why it’s one of my favourite places?

Fetlar

A museum curator who does cartwheels in the car park, home-made ice cream with unusual flavours and a couple of lovely walks.

Wednesday 10th August, 2011 and Thursday 11th August, 2011

campsiteI arrived in Fetlar on Tuesday evening and pitched my tent in the boggy field that is the official campsite. Apart from a Dutch family on the far side of the field, I was the only person there. The wind was getting up, but the light was beautiful so I had a stroll along the road taking photos of the amazing coastline, before settling in for the night.

Fetlar Fetlar

Wednesday was a beautiful day. I started by going to the museum. As I drove up a boy was doing cartwheels in the car park, obviously really enjoying the sun. He turned out to be the curator and tourist info guy. When I turned into the car park he went back inside and stood behind the counter and was very professional.
Fetlar Fetlar
The museum had lots of local history, geology, etc. There was a big display on William Watson Cheyne who had a house in Fetlar. There were lots of connections with places I’ve been so I was quite interested. He was born on his father’s ship just off Tasmania and christened in the Scottish church in Hobart. He’d worked in King’s College Hospital. His family were from Tangwick Haa.
Fetlar Fetlar
I spoke to C (the young curator) and an older woman who came in. She was a trustee of the museum. The curator had left suddenly and they had a new one starting in another week or so. The new one was a lady from the Isle of Sheppey. As the museum was currently curatorless the trustees had been opening it up and working in it voluntarily. They’d also got the island’s teenagers to get involved and do shifts. C was one of those. He was 14 years old and originally from Warrington. He’d moved to Fetlar with his younger sister 18 months ago when his mum got the district nurse job. C was a student at the Anderson, the main high school for Shetland’s children of secondary school age. He’d started at the high school in Unst but didn’t like the travelling  and having to get up at 6am and not getting home till 5pm. He was really happy at the Anderson, living in the hostel. He said everyone, kids and teachers, had made him feel part of things from the start. He felt they got a lot a more freedom then he had in Warrington too. There are no school uniforms in Shetland schools, but he said it gets a bit boring wearing your own clothes as then you have nothing different to wear in your own time.
Fetlar
He told me there were nine children currently on Fetlar, but a family with two more, including a girl his age, were due to arrive on Friday. It seemed that life on Fetlar is ‘moving up’ – families are moving in and the primary school which has been closed for a couple of years as there were no children that age, is about to re-open as there are now two children to go to it. The previous teacher is coming back.
Fetlar
It seems a good thing to do to get the teenagers involved in the museum as not only do they get to know about their island, it’s great work experience. Where else would a 14 year old be doing shifts in a museum by himself, dealing with tourist info queries, both in person as the museum doubles as the tourist info office, and fielding overflow calls from the main Lerwick tourist office?
Fetlar
The woman trustee showed me some old photos including one of her and her friends standing outside the Anderson hostel back in their school days there. There was a woman visitor in the museum who said she had also been a pupil at the Anderson. She is now a teacher, though not there. I don’t think she lives in Shetland. Three generations of Anderson students together – this must be quite normal here, where everyone will have these connections and links.
TFetlarhe woman also showed me a photo of the old church. This has now been rebuilt as the modern community centre and the only original part seems to be the internal roof. All dark wood. She was the last person to get married in this church back in 1969. As there weren’t the ferry links then it was a massive task to get all the food and guest together. Fetlar weddings she said, at least back then, can go on for days.
Fetlar is hoping to get good enough internet connections that people on the island can start working from home doing council jobs and so on. Teleworking. This would be good in further encouraging people to move to Fetlar. There are about 70 people at the moment.
Fetlar
I left the museum still giggling at the thought of the museum curator doing cartwheels in the car park. It kept me amused all day.
Fetlar
Before going to the museum I’d called in at the well-stocked shop to pay for camping. I spoke to the woman who had moved up from the Midlands a year or two ago to take over the shop. She told me about riots that have been happening in cities in England, including Manchester. Apparently police had shot someone in London and a demonstration about this had turned into a riot that had spread around the country. It seemed to be more an opportunity for thugs and looters to have a field day than anything political though. I love that I can be in a place in the UK and yet not know about something as major as this happening. It really is like a different world. She also told me that because of the film that’s currently being shot in Shetland, The One Show had been up and done some of their own filming. The shop woman had been interviewed, but she wasn’t sure when it was going to be on.
Fetlar

I next went to the community centre where there is the Fetlar Café. I had a Panini and coffee – a cafetiere of very good strong coffee and then followed it with a homemade golden bay flavour icecream. The cook in the café used to be the school cook until the school closed down. The café job is part-time so she’s thinking about selling her ice-cream commercially. A small tub with a simple ‘Fetlar ice cream’ label was £1.80. Most of the ingredients she sources locally, but obviously some she can’t. Golden Bay has the cream flavoured with bay leaves and then it’s sweetened with golden syrup instead of sugar. The homemade cakes looked good too.

FetlarLeaving the café I drove the short distance to Funzie Loch  (Funzie is pronounced Finney) I watched two red-throated divers on the loch for a while and then walked to the hide where I sat for over an hour looking for exciting wildlife. I saw a rabbit. The Dutch family were also at the hide but didn’t stay very long. When I left the hide I walked up across a boggy, burn criss-crossed moor to the old derelict coast guard station. There were quite a few bonxies about , but they were enjoying flying about and not at all interested in me. I then walked round the headland taking photos and stopping to admire the views. It was late when I got back to my car and I didn’t get back to my tent till about 8pm. It’s wonderful having such long days, even at this time it was still broad daylight.
Fetlar
The following morning I had a bit of a lazy start. I had a shower and got packed up and then went back to the café for lunch and a gooseberry and elderflower ice cream. More gooseberry taste than elderflower, but delicious all the same.

Fetlar

I left the car back at the campsite and waked down to Tresta beach. I intended walking along the beach and then following a path to the high point of the cliffs above. I had a quick look at the church – lots of memorials to various locals of bygone times – and then made my way to the beach. I got interested in the rocks and shells and spent my time walking up and down and collecting some of them instead of going up onto the hill. I only left when it was time to collect my car for the drive to the pier to catch the 4.45pm ferry.