The White Wife

This is just eerie. Elsewhere I mentioned Valhalla Brewery's White Wife beer. Shetland isn't inherently racist and sexist (as far as I know) but White Wife is actually two things - a ghost which appears in people's cars (!), and this thing.



A German boat sunk on the surrounding rocks in 1924, with the loss of four lives. About six months later the figurehead was washed ashore on the beach. It's been restored and is now staring out to sea at the rocks - the boat is still lying in bits below it. To get to the statue you need to park up near East Yell and walk about 10-15 minutes through fields full of sheep, sheep poo and hidden water traps. That's reminded me - I did some exercise today, so better go up and get another beer ...

Unst

Unst was brilliant. This was the view out of my window at the place I stayed in in Baltasound. I think it says more than mere words can offer.



It's so welcoming there's not just one but TWO "Welcome To Unst" signs as you get off the ferry. And look at that blue sky, I got pretty lucky with that!





This image is pretty typical of my driving experience on the island. Long straight roads, no cars.



Lots of weird hidden stuff too. This memorial was hidden round a side track near my hotel, by Baltasound Pier. What happened to the Swedish fishermen is unknown.





I don't normally take photos of random installations but this appears to be the Vodafone aerial - probably the only one on the island. I got five bars on my phone within 100 yards of it, and no bars anywhere else.



Back to the ferry port back to Yell. Hard to believe that this place, like most of Shetland, offers free wi-fi.



And a xylophone boat, how cool is that! And I did have a play of it, to the bemusement of a small handful of truckers and foreign tourists standing around.

Random Shetland

This is in the town centre of the capital, Lerwick. No, me neither. Saw this at around 8.00am, I'd just come off the ferry and hadn't decided what to do next. The town centre is deserted, totally un-rush-hour-like.



This was exciting, seeing the exact line of latitude. Of course it wasn't that exciting because I arrived in Shetland above the line, so I'm actually crossing it going south, but it's a good thing to stop and photograph all the same.



This is an ancient tribute to Darth Vader, surely?



Couldn't believe this - I have now driven my car on an airport runway! The main runway at Sumburgh Airport actually crosses the main road going to Jarlshof and you could, in theory, do a 90 degree turn and drive up and down the runway (as opposed to across it). However there's a sign rather strictly saying you can't do any of that stuff.





Here's a sign you don't see in Essex every day.



This is as un-English a place name I've ever seen in Britain. I knew Shetland still has a strong Scandinavian influence before I came here, although things like this remind you quite how much.



I had heard that Norwegian newspapers were freely available on the streets of Kirkwall and Lerwick. Can't speak for Kirkwall but in Lerwick this morning I noticed only two newspapers on sale - Farmers Guardian and Motor Cycle News.

Now this was unexpected, a bilingual place name sign in English and Old Norse! Surely unique in Britain? Having been to the more famous Thingvellir in Iceland a few months ago, I could be going to a third one if I end up in Dingwall near Inverness later this week.



It would have been unique had I remembered that Lerwick has one too.



The Old Norse influence is massive. The town of Lerwick's motto is in Old Norse too - Med Logum Skal Land Bygga. Weirdly, this is also the motto of the Icelandic Police Force.



On the language subject, this is an interesting collection of languages. No Norwegian, and the English flag seems to have turned into a Shetland Nordic cross.



This is the welcome sign that greets you as you come off the ferry. There can't be many other welcome signs in the UK which rank Norwegian and Faroese as more important than German and French. As far as I recall, you can't get a direct ferry from the Faroes to Shetland any more. However their radio station is very clear on 531 kHz and the local Shetland station, SIBC, includes news from Torshavn in their local news bulletin!



Now this isn't bilingual, this is just gibberish.



Driving around near Lerwick looking for a cup of tea and after being directed down three miles of single track roads I find the tiny village of Hoswick which has an enormous visitor centre for some reason.



Opposite was a small factory which was opened by the Queen in 1967, not something you would expect to see in such a small place! I didn't take any pictures of that though because there were some old people outside it staring me out. Back to the visitor centre and inside, something else that was unexpected - a very large collection of vintage radios going back 100 years. Most were donated by a single Shetlander.





I got very excited when I saw the Vega. This was my first short wave radio which I bought in 1982 when I was at school, very young! Great for picking up the English service of Radio Moscow, which was all over the shortwaves.



Finally a trip to Shetland wouldn't be complete without seeing some of these. There's quite a lot of places you can see them.

Most Northernly This And That ...

It's great being in this part of the world, where everything is the most northernly this or that.

This wasn't even that far north - it was in Brae. Excellent fish and chips though, can't fault that.



Springer's Bar in Baltasound. I'm in here now, Monday evening, 10pm. There's about five people in here and they all look sad and/or mental. Unlike my visit to the Faroes, I won't be making a habit of engaging random people in random bars with random converstaion ...



This is a Methodist Church so does it even count? It's in Haroldswick which is a couple of miles to the north of here.



This is Britain's most northernly house, in Skaw - I'm pretty sure although there's nothing to say so. I had to drive up a cliff and avoid kamikaze sheep to reach this place.



This is probably the most northernly off licence and petrol station in the UK, in Baltasound. Probably close to being the most expensive petrol and diesel price, coming in about 20p a litre more than I'm paying in Essex at the moment.





This is definitely the most northernly post office. It says so in the window. And yes I did buy a postcard to get the special frank!





When I was in the off licence I bought a couple of bottles of White Wife beer, brewed by Britain's most northernly brewery, Valhalla. I think I found it driving around too ... it's basically beer that someone's knocked up in their shed.





Now this is just plain wrong. I found this maybe 25 miles south of Springers Bar, in Mid Yell.

Bobby's Bus Shelter

This is the world's most famous bus shelter, in Baltasound. It has been dressed up for years after someone called Bobby wrote to the local paper to complain about the bus shelters, or something! If you look carefully you can see the Baltasound Hotel and Springers Bar on the right behind it. I am in Springers Bar right now, typing this up and drinking Tenants Ice Cold, which gets slightly better with every pint.



The Tall Ships Race is taking part at the moment, apparently having visited Baltasound today and going to Lerwick tomorrow. I haven't seen a single one yet, but that's why there are embroidered tall ships hanging up - whoever does all this goes to a lot of effort to keep it topical. The table has a programme for the race in German left by one of the crews and signed with today's date. The phone doesn't work (I did try).





I thought the Amstrad CPC6128 was a nice touch. It's been a long long time since I've seen one of these.



This is a nice touch too, albeit a bit bizzare, but I wholeheartedly approve. It's immediately in front of the shelter.