The Far North

“There’s our boat!” We spotted the enormous shiny white and blue ferry among the ships in Aberdeen’s busy harbor. Painted on the side of the ship was a massive stylized Viking man with his long beard blowing biblically in the wind. He pointed his hand with epic drama towards the sea, towards adventure! Although we would be sitting back in cushy recliner seats rather than rowing the open ocean in a longboat all the way from Norway, we still felt that same attraction to far-off lands.

This excitement pulled us towards the ferry. We zigzagged through the busy streets, waddling under the weight of our packs. Although the harbor scene wasn’t glamorous in the traditional sense, it had an excitingly intriguing flavor: neon-clad workers moved around on the decks of freighters, heavy cargo trucks roared through the streets, rain spattered down on us, seagulls squawked wildly, and a fishy ocean smell pervaded the air. Over the next two weeks, along with lots of lovely nature, we would get to explore more of this unpolished working landscape with all of its fascinating grit and charm.

And where were we headed on this boat? The Shetland Islands… the very idea of the place seemed remote, mysterious, and full of adventure. That being our cup of tea, we had decided to spend a little over two weeks exploring this cluster of islands in the North Atlantic. First step: a 200 mile ferry ride to get there. We got a feel for these great distances as we peered down at the endless water surrounding the ferry. Grey swells rolled out to the horizon, our boat the only human artifact among a world that was half water and half sky. As a rainy darkness fell, we curled up on the floor of the ferry and let the big and slightly nauseating swells rock us to sleep. Although it made us queasy, there was also something soothing about riding the in-breath and out-breath of the powerful ocean.

By 7:30 am we were awake with slightly bleary eyes and had docked in Lerwick, Shetland’s “big city” with all of 7000 people. Its warehouses, docks, ships, and hillsides of sturdy gale-resistant buildings all spoke to the city’s intimate connection with the sea. Following our usual pattern, we promptly vacated the city for the northernmost island of Unst, population 630. We felt lucky and amazed that we could actually get to the farthest outpost of the UK by public transit. While we waited for the once-a-day connection from Lerwick, we explored the splendid Shetland Museum where we began to get oriented to the history of the islands. The saga of Shetland began near the South Pole 600 million years ago, and thanks to the movement of tectonic plates it has since traveled almost clear across the globe, encountering wild adventures all along the way: continental collisions and upheavals, deserts, ice ages, volcanoes, and long-vanished lakes and seas. While the body of Shetland tells of its geological history, the surface of Shetland reflects its long human story: first, the Neolithic farmers of 5,000 years ago, then the Iron Age broch builders, followed by the Pictish culture, Viking invaders and Norse settlers, tenant croft farmers, fishing booms, WWI and WWII, and finally the oil boom that started in the 1970’s. Although Shetland has had many different faces over the eons, it lives on in 2017 as a land of sheep farms, fisheries, small communities, and amazing wildlife.

Once 4:00 pm rolled around, we squeezed our packs into the bus (an 18-passenger van) and continued our journey northwards. We gazed out the window as we wound our way across miles and miles of the barren Shetland landscape, hills of dull green sheep pasture sprinkled with occasional towns and villages. With not a tree in sight, the sky a gloomy grey, and the hillsides sagging to reveal cross-sections of thick black peat, it seemed awfully inhospitable. After our bus had gotten a ride on a ferry to the island of Yell we drove over the whole 20 mile length seeing nothing but hills covered in peat bog. Transferring to another ferry and a smaller bus, we finally arrived at Unst’s one hostel where we would be camping for the next 10 days.

Finally, we had arrived! Arrived, but where? We took a look around at our surroundings, all of it a striking change of scenery from anywhere we had been before. The hillsides were dotted with sheep, crisscrossed with old stone walls, and speckled with the ruins of croft houses in various states of disintegration. We had traded trees for telephone poles and bushes for fence posts. Lumpy tufts of grass clung tightly to the earth. In front of us spread a view of the bay with its row of big salmon farm rafts. Around the curve of the bay was the town of Uyeasound, a cluster of houses both habited and uninhabited, home to no more than a few dozen people. Except for the wind, it all seemed exceedingly quiet. The landscape was  restrained, a little bit melancholy, with a calm and subtle beauty. We would become more familiar with the island’s wonderful character over the next 10 days, but as we pitched our tent in moody grey rain and buffeting wind we asked ourselves, “What are we doing here?” Also to our disappointment, the public transit that had gotten us to the island wouldn't be very workable for checking out the local sights.

We decided that renting electric bicycles would be the perfect solution to this problem. On Monday we took the bus up to the Saxa Vord Resort, where an older man runs a small rental business. The word “resort” had painted a ritzy picture of Saxa Vord in our imaginations, but in reality it was far more down-to-earth. It is a former Royal Air Force (RAF) base, once a busy hub of activity on the island, now a funky relic made up of grey cookie-cutter stucco buildings. Although it has been given new life as a resort since it officially closed in 2006, it still rocked full 1970’s charm and decor. For being a resort in the peak season of August, it was surprisingly deserted. Where was the bike rental? Where was… anyone? We wandered through the musty smelling RAF museum with dressed up mannequins gazing at us, through the technically open but unattended cafe with huge posters of puffins covering the walls and a cooler lined with desserts of indeterminate age. After about 15 minutes unable to find a single soul, we finally located a cook back in the kitchen who could point us in the right direction. Like many of the places we explored on Unst, Saxa Vord was a fascinating step into a memory of past life and activity that continues today in a much more subdued form.

Natural Wonders

Equipped with bicycles, we sped our way up to the Hermaness Nature Reserve. We began our visit with a 45 minute walk across the moorland, full of bonxies (officially known as Arctic Skua). These grand birds presided regally over the boggy ground that they sat upon. We passed by them with some nervousness, as they are well known to dive-bomb people to protect their nests. Later, we also watched one of them attack a gannet in flight in order to steal its catch of fish. But for how fierce and powerful they are, they are not immune to humans. In 1831 there were only 3 pairs left in this area, but fortunately today their numbers have recovered.

After safely making it through the domain of the bonxies, we arrived at the cliff edge and peered down at the scene below. Our jaws dropped. The rocky outcrops in the water looked like snow-capped mountains… white from their coating of birds! Up to 100,000 birds congregate here on the wave-battered cliffs and stacks, drawn by the rich buffet of fish served up by the collision of warm and cold ocean currents. Our senses immersed us into the scene, with the putrid smell of poop fertilizing our noses and the unwavering din of bird calls ringing in our ears. Thousands of white specks circled and soared like a galaxy of stars, alight with the wild and exuberant joy of nature.

We sat down for a while to soak in the scene, our hearts drawn into its dazzling beauty. White birds, mainly gannets and fulmars, absolutely coated all the nooks and crannies and ledges of the steep cliff face. Far below, the churning teal water crashed into the cliffs and stacks, transforming itself into white spray. When the birds weren’t jockeying for a good rocky perch, they were out fishing. Elegant gannets glided upon the wind, and once they spotted a fish they would tuck their wings, plummet out of the sky with the full force of gravity, and plunge powerfully into the water. It was a sight that never lost its fresh amazement. Besides the gannets, the other most numerous bird we saw were the fulmars, adorable birds who love to ride the wind currents along the cliff’s lip. Sitting on the cliff top, our eyes glided in mesmerizing circles as we followed the birds in their flight.

Next we made our way northwards along the cliff for an overlook of the Muckle Flugga lighthouse on a rocky stack off shore. A laminated piece of paper on a wooden stake announced: “Welcome to the northernmost point of the UK. Next stop north of Muckle Flugga and Out Stack is the North Pole.” Wow! We swept our eyes northwards to the horizon, across the expanse of frigid water that would eventually transition to ice at the top of the world. It was exhilarating to be truly at the last outpost before the Arctic.

As the sun lowered in the sky, we reluctantly said goodbye and headed back to our bicycles for the 15 kilometer ride across the full length of the island back to our tent. It was a splendid night to whiz down the smooth deserted roads in the freedom of the cool air. The island’s subdued interior was an intriguing contrast with the sensory wonders we had experienced on the coast.

The coastline was indeed Unst’s richest spot for wildlife and natural splendor. One day we spotted what looked like a small boat or piece of driftwood in the water, which on closer examination through Colby’s long lens revealed itself to be a seal! We were delighted to have a view of its entire massive body as it sunned itself on a barely-submerged rock. After that first impressive sighting, it seemed that every time we went to a beach there was a seal popping its dark head out of the water to inquisitively check us out. We could imagine the seals watching the previous 5000 years of human history on Unst with this same curiosity. Long before the first humans arrived, however, they had already been inhabiting these waters for unfathomable lengths of time, along with the swaying seaweed, soaring birds, and barnacles and whelks clinging to tide pool rocks.

Taking us even farther back into the memory of the earth were the rocks, so clearly kneaded by intense heat and pressure, veined with quartz, thrust sideways, formed and reformed in turbulent collisions and upheavals. All the different types of rocks we saw, such as the sparkling mica, beautiful red Skaw granite, and strange greenish Serpentine, reminded us of the beauty that springs out of seemingly violent elemental forces. The whole scene – the animals, ocean, and rocks – were beautiful manifestations of a dream deeper and broader and older than we humans can comprehend.

In the hopes of spotting one particularly unique expression of this creativity, we made our way to the Keen of Hamar nature reserve. The reserve is tiny, only about 400m by 1200m, but it is the only place in the world where a rare white flower called Edmonston’s Chickweed grows. As we wandered around the rocky moonscape, not just one but three of these tiny plants caught our eyes with their delicate white petals. We had to admire their spirit, hanging on to the harsh gravel while buffeted by the endless chilly Shetland wind. It was an existence impressive yet tenuous, the entire species reliant on whatever happens to this tiny patch of ground. The nature reserve is home to a number of other rare flowers as well, all of them growing to only a fraction of the size that their species normally grows in more hospitable terrain. On Unst, everything is tight, drawn into itself, hunkered down to its bare essentials in order to survive the wind and cold. The ponies, sheep, grass, flowers, and stone houses are all sturdy and small.

Stories of Stone

Despite this harsh climate, humans have called Unst home for thousands of years. Endless waves of history have washed onto the island, deposited their buildings and cultures, and then receded. Unst is a land rich with stories, expressed in the stone ruins we saw scattered almost everywhere on the island. While the ruins tell some of Unst’s stories clearly, they keep other tales hidden in their silent memory.

One such mystery is that of the brochs, grand cylindrical towers built in the Iron Age about 2000 years ago. The broch ruins we explored on Unst were little more than a big grass-covered circular lump, so we had to stretch our imaginations to picture what it might have looked like in the past. No one knows exactly what the brochs were used for, but they were probably centers of power and influence, perhaps where leaders lived. Throughout Shetland, there are lots of broch ruins collapsed into various states of obscurity, and we got to see a number of these intriguing buildings during our stay.

Fast forwarding almost 1000 years, we next explored the Viking history of Unst with all of its fascinating mystique. Around the year 800 AD, the mighty Vikings arrived from Norway on their longboats and invaded Shetland. They settled here and overtook the previous Pictish culture (either wiping them out or absorbing them, no one is sure). Now that they were inhabitants rather than invaders, they were no longer referred to as Vikings. Instead they became known as the Norse, and remained Shetland’s dominant culture for hundreds of years. The strength of their influence is still alive and well in Shetland’s dialects, genetics, traditions, place names, and festivals. Not to mention all of the ruins! We visited several Viking longhouses, of which there are more than 60 identified on Unst. Although the three excavated longhouses we visited were the best-preserved, they were still no more than big rectangles of large stones. The fun part was to visualize them in their heyday. Our imaginations were aided by the masterfully built full-size replicas of a Viking longhouse and longboat near one of Unst’s towns. Later, as we ate lunch sitting in our own private longhouse on our own private beach, we could easily imagine the Vikings 1000 years ago pulling their boats onto the sand in front of us and walking through the same doorway that we had just passed through.

The Norse continued to rule Shetland until the mid 1400s, when it was transferred to Scottish rule as part of a dowry for a royal marriage. This brings us into the era of our next ruin, Muness Castle. The sign out front introduced it “Muness Castle: Built by the Sweat and Tears of Shetlanders.” Its story explains this feeling. The castle was built in 1598 by a widely hated lord who had officially been banished from Shetland for corruption, but returned anyway to build his castle. Rather than sprawling regally, this castle was solid and compact like most of the buildings in Shetland, but lavish nonetheless. Although it didn't have the classic “castle” image like those we visited in Switzerland, the sheer excitement of exploring this remarkably well-preserved yet almost deserted place made it just as awesome. There was no one else there as we turned on the flashlights provided in a box outside and ducked our heads beneath the low doorways of the castle’s dark lower chambers. We poked around all the nooks and crannies, and stepped up into daylight on the second floor. Again, a whole world of which only an assemblage of stones remain. The vroom of an ATV outside brought our imaginations back to the present for a little while. We peered out the window of the tower and watched a farmer and his Shetland sheepdog round up a herd of Shetland sheep.

Today, sheep rule the landscape of Unst. In addition to the tradition of sheep farming, the island also has a long history of crofts – small farms rented from a landowning lord (Laird). Until the late 1800s, Unst was full of big families living a hardscrabble croft existence, filling their busy days with sheep and grain farming, cutting peat for fuel, growing brassicas to prevent scurvy, and going on dangerous fishing expeditions to supplement their meager income. All of this work only served to stave off debt to their Lairds for another day. Back in those days, the population of Unst was many times higher than today, but around the turn of the 20th century many factors combined to largely depopulate the island. The fishing industry petered out, the Lairds cleared out their crofters to make room for more profitable large-scale sheep farming, and there were more opportunities elsewhere. These changes left us with the dozens and dozens of roofless croft ruins that we could see scattered almost everywhere on the island. The simple stone frames carried the memory of a once-bustling crofting community that has dissolved into the incessant wind.

The Shetland wind has blown through lots of human history. At the end of our stay in Shetland, we would visit the famous Jarlshof archaeological site way down at the southern tip of the main island, which has seen it all. Jarlshof gathered together all the ruins of history we had seen scattered about Shetland and piled them on top of each other, literally. (Check out this cool 4 minute YouTube video which illustrates it through the ages: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0p41wbmwqVM). People have lived on this piece of prime real estate since 2700 BC, each layer of construction getting covered up by the next. We were baffled by the archaeologists’ ability to make heads and tails of such a jumbled pile. Oldest of all, we could just make out the obscure oval foundation of a Bronze Age dwelling more than 4000 years old. Next up was a Bronze Age smithy, an Iron Age round house, and another broch. Although half of the broch has been eroded into the sea, the part of it that remained standing provided much more of a clue to its original look than the broch ruins we had seen in Unst. As we walked into the exterior hallway that once encircled the broch, it was thrilling to imagine it in its majestic heyday before the time of Jesus. Continuing the excitement of this maze-like playground, we ducked our heads and entered a wheel house. As we walked through the half-buried labyrinth of this house with its artfully scalloped exterior walls, we dreamed about the real people (short people!) who once lived right in the rooms where we were now standing. Fast forwarding to more recent history, we also saw the foundations of generations of Viking longhouses, the remnants of medieval farm buildings from the 1300s, and the ruins of the grand house of a Laird from the 1600s. It was fun and moving to imagine the endless series of different lifestyles, societies, families, loves, and struggles that have passed over this ground with the turn of generations. All those rich living worlds of the past! The stone ruins of Shetland reminded us that the world is bigger, longer, and more full of experience than the small slice we will ever get to see in our lifetimes.

Unst Today

Although Unst was rich with history and nature, the fascinating character of the island did not end there. It is also a living and working island home to lots of lovely people. Unfortunately, we had to return our electric bicycles after one of them had motor problems on the third day of our rental. For the rest of our stay on Unst, hitchhiking allowed us to meet lots of wonderful characters and get a taste of the island’s small-town community. Our far most memorable ride was with a vivacious, quirky, and unstoppably talkative older woman who gave us not just a ride (to a part of the island she wasn’t even headed to) but also a tour! There was a new boat tied up to the Baltasound pier that she hadn’t seen before, so of course we drove down to go chat up the two men on the boat. They had arrived with a load of shiny new nets for some of the many salmon farms in the bays of Unst. The word “fish farm” usually brings to mind a filthy cesspool of disease. But our tour guide described how, since they opened in the 1980s, fish farms have revitalized the economy of Unst, keeping young people on the island and providing lots of employment for its residents. Fish booms are nothing new, though. Along the edge of the Baltasound bay, she pointed out the old dock attachments left over from the herring fishing extravaganza of the early 1900s, which flooded Unst with almost 11,000 inhabitants – just a little bit more than the 630 that live there today.

The next stop on our tour was a subtle rectangle of stones in the ground. We had passed them several times on our bikes but had never even given them a second glance. Although they didn’t look like much, our tour guide illuminated their long and dramatic history. Around the year 800 AD, missionaries came to Shetland to try to Christianize the native population and build churches. Things didn’t go as smoothly as hoped. The stones we saw were the unrealized dream of a church that never made it past the ground level. Every morning, the church builders would find the previous day’s construction mysteriously knocked down into rubble on the ground. One night, the Christians decided to get to the bottom of things and left the priest there overnight to figure out the funny business. But in the morning, he was dead! No more church. Having our own private tour guide talking our ear off with all the stories of the landscape really made our surroundings spring to life. It was amazing to imagine how many other stories, just as dramatic as this one, must be hidden unnoticed in the ruins of Unst.

All too soon our 10 days on Unst drew to a close. We had arrived on a whim with only vague notions of why we were there, but the island swept us away with all of its quirkiness, natural wonders, history, and funky charm. It existed wonderfully just the way it was, with very little polished facade put on for tourists. The piers strewn with fishing nets and equipment and junk were just as much a part of the place as the pristine sandy beaches and the cliffs coated in sea birds. There were a handful of other tourists, but a lot of times it was just us, the wind, and sheep. Although we could have kept ourselves entertained for even longer, we were also excited to see what different parts of Shetland had to offer.

Wind and Waves  

Our next landing spot was a 5-night stay on Shetland’s northern mainland. What drew us here were the cliffs of Eshaness, which are bashed and sculpted by the powerful waves rolling in from the open Atlantic. Our campground overlooked some of these striking sculptures, so even from the comfort of our tent we had a five star view.

Our first full day in Eshaness, we lucked out with wind so strong it made it hard to walk in a straight line, with our ears requiring earplugs for protection from the roar and pressure. Lucked out? Yes, because strong wind also meant waves – monstrous waves, larger-than-life waves, swelling and breaking with mesmerizing power. When they hit the rocks, they erupted into plumes of white spray that raced up the tall cliffs seemingly against gravity. We squiggled our way along the coastline of Eshaness, gaping at this amazing scene, walking at a tilt, clothing flapping violently in the wind, going half blind every few minutes as our glasses got coated in salty sea spray. Overhead floated whimsical blobs of white sea foam, blown up and over the cliffs like disorganized flocks of birds. Blowholes spewed mist high into the air. The wind whipped everything into a crashing, battering, sailing, swirling frenzy. And here we were, exhilaratingly in the middle of it all!

Watching the motion of the crashing waves drew us into the immediate drama of the present moment. At the same time, the unmoving cliffs spoke of an ancient drama just as spectacular. Although today Eshaness is a land of watery explosions, long ago it was a land of fiery explosions. The cliffs we walked upon were the product of an ancient volcano, and we could easily see the layers of hardened lava, ash, and debris that formed them. Just like the layers of human history in the Jarlshof ruins, the cliffs of Eshaness sketched only the outline of their story for us. We had to use our imaginations to fill in the details and sense the vitality that once scalded, erupted, belched, sparked, and flowed through this long-lost volcanic world.

Although our first spectacular day in Eshaness had blown us away, the wind had also sapped our energy levels. We spent the next few days taking it easy at our campground, exploring the beach, and going on small outings. We also began to think in earnest about the post-UK phase of our trip as well as dream about our hopes for the next five years and beyond. The beach below the campground was the perfect place to look inward and contemplate these questions. We watched the evening light set the reddish cliffs aglow, listened to the soothing rhythm of waves on smooth pebbles, and watched the water turn a luminous celestial blue at dusk. As we talked, we felt cradled and rooted in the rhythms of the earth, in its vast arc of time. We ran our hands across boulders of grainy reddish sandstone deposited when the land was an equatorial desert 360 million years ago, daydreaming about all the changes that time brings. As we imagine the next months and years, it was grounding to know that our own lives have a small but undeniable place in the grand sweep of nature.

Although the cliffs and waves were utterly spectacular, as we passed the two week mark of our time in Shetland we began to grow homesick for trees. The desolate chilly wind, which was the constant backdrop to all of our daily activities, drained our energy and enthusiasm. Julia developed a melancholy longing for lushness, colors, abundance, textures, smells, and other sensory joys. Although Shetland was an engaging place to visit, we realized we would have a hard time living in such an environment long-term. Insights like these have been an important part of our trip as we figure out what types of landscapes and communities we could see ourselves settling in.

Our 16 days on the islands had transported our imaginations into many different worlds. Now, it was time to transport ourselves to the faraway world of southern England where we would be WWOOFing. The long journey began with the overnight ferry back to Aberdeen. This time, we had rougher seas! In gale force winds, the boat released itself to the power of the wild waves: rise, free fall, thud, splash, repeat. It was just rough enough that the Coast Guard decided it would be a good night to do a practice rescue from our boat, so we had the excitement of watching a deafening helicopter hover thrillingly close above the boat for miles (YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKRdlcib50A&t=1s). With such big waves, we didn’t want to imagine what barfing misery we would be in without our seasickness pills. And apparently this was nothing compared to the storms of winter – yikes! Anyway, the next morning we stepped back onto dry land and continued our journey towards the Redfield Community. After all day on the bus, 6 hours loitering in a Manchester city park, then a night on the bus, and three local buses, it was 7:30 am and we were in a travel coma. We made our way up the driveway flanked with lush trees, rang the buzzer on the big old red brick estate house, and opened the door to our next adventure.