We had a wonderful trip to Unst yesterday, and managed to squeeze in 2 museums (Unst Heritage Centre and Boat Haven), chocolate and not one, but two nature walks with bird-watching.
First up was a walk along Lambaness, where we hoped to see whales, but instead met some lovely sheep!
This is the end of land. At the edge of the grass it dropped sharply into the sea, before rising up in this rock outcrop. The next land in a straight line from here is probably Canada.
Then we had an impusive urge to walk across Hermaness nature reserve. It was 4pm, the walk was marked at 45-60 minutes each way, and we knew it would take around 2 hours to get back to Lerwick. We nearly gave it a miss, as it seemed too late to get there and back in enough time, BUT THERE WERE PUFFINS TO BE SEEN!
We route-marched our way over the moorland, and got from the visitor centre to the cliffs in 35 minutes. I was very grateful to my bootcamp training, as I'm not sure I would have made it otherwise. I was a bit of a wheezing mess when we arrived, but the birds were so worth it.
I could have sat and watched them flying in and out for hours. We even saw a puffin arrive with fish in its beak, and deliver the meal to the puffling in its burrow.
The views over the cliffs were dizzying. the ground just falls away from your feet.
On the walk back over the moorland we saw this little bird. After some online sleuthing, we've identified it as a Dunlin. While we were watching this Dunlin feeding, we heard a very distinctive call coming from some birds flying overhead. I can only describe it as sounding a bit like the TARDIS. Much listening to recordings on the RSPB website has identified it as a Snipe. You can hear a recording of the Snipe's call on the RSPB site. It's very distinctive.
This is the view on the walk back to the car - it gives a sense of how much the ground had risen on the way up to the cliffs. I was very happy that the route back didn't tire me out as much as the walk to the cliffs. And I was even more delighted that we had a couple of pots of crème caramel remaining from lunch when we made it back to the car at 6pm!
Just in case you think that all we have done is bird-watching and other such worthy pastimes...
We stopped for a photo-opportunity at Bobby's Bus Shelter. It is currently themed for the Jubilee (I'm reading a book about Queen Elizabeth II).
I'm looking at the drawers and wishing I had opened them! Without doubt the best bus shelter I have ever visited.
I'm also getting lots of knitting done, so as soon as I've nailed Jim down for some modelling, there will be FO updates.
