Shetland Wildlife & Archaeology

Today we make the journey to Shetland’s most northerly island, taking two short ferry crossings, first to Yell and then on to our destination, Unst. It is here that many believe the Vikings first settled in the North Atlantic and the remains of at least 60 longhouses have been discovered, the highest density of rural Viking sites anywhere, including Scandinavia. We will visit one of them at Underhoull where occupation seems to have begun in the 9^th century and flourished in the 10^th. Excavations here revealed some beautifully made soapstone items, carved pebble line sinkers for fishing, pottery vessel fragments, spindle whorls, loom weights and whetstones. Later we visit the Skidbladner replica Gokstad ship and the Viking Longhouse reconstruction, both located at Haroldswick.

After lunch we visit Muness Castle, a tower house built by the Chamberlain of Shetland in 1598, destroyed by French pirates in 1627, abandoned in the late 18th century, and now a romantic roofless ruin. Before leaving Unst we will drive to the far north of the island to take a view of the Muckle Flugga Lighthouse. Built in 1858 by David and Thomas Stevenson, their nephew, Robert Louis, penned Treasure Island not long after his visit to Unst.

This morning we explore the small, wild island of Mousa, uninhabited since the 19^th century. Here one of the UK’s largest colony of storm petrels, or alamootie, to give them their Shetland name, nest in burrows beneath rocks, scree, and the rocky beach as well as in the curved stone walls of Mousa Broch. There is a great diversity of birdlife here. Great Skua, or Bonxie, the aggressive pirate of the seas, harass gannets and gulls on the look-out for a free meal, black guillemots, with their distinctive black and white plumage, forage close to shore and fulmar fly low over the sea on stiff wings. We will also explore the Broch which standing at 13m high, is one of Scotland's most impressive and best surviving Iron Age towers thought to have been constructed around 300 BCE. In the afternoon, we will visit Old Scatness, an Iron Age site discovered during the construction of the airport access road in 1975 and Jarlshof a site of many layers where discoveries included oval-shaped Bronze Age houses, an Iron Age broch and wheelhouses, Norse long houses, a medieval farmstead, and a laird’s house dating from the 1500s.

Some of the best-preserved fragments of early prehistoric landscapes in Scotland are visible on the slopes above Gruting Voe and we will discover two of them today. The first is the Scord of Brouster, one of the earliest Neolithic farm sites in Shetland dating from just after 3000 BC to around 1500 BCE. Our second is the Stanydale Temple, an impressive and well-preserved puzzling structure which together with its elaborate design suggest a use aside from the purely domestic. In the afternoon we explore some more of the wild and rugged coast of North Mainland where the full fury of the Atlantic has helped to shape some of Shetland's most dramatic cliff scenery. We make a quick stop at Mavis Grind, the narrow isthmus which connects Northmavine to mainland Shetland. It is believed that Vikings dragged their boats overland here to make the shortcut between the North Atlantic and North Sea. We continue to the stunning Eshaness Cliffs on which sits another of Stevenson’s lighthouses and from here you can walk to Calder's Geo, where the sea has gouged out a deep inlet. Here you can see Fulmars wheel on air currents above the surf and nest among the crannies of the vertical rock faces.

We visit Lerwick, Shetland’s only town. Lerwick developed from an unofficial marketplace to service 17th century Dutch herring fleets and most of the sandstone buildings on the waterfront date from the 18th century. Here we will explore the Shetland Museum, situated on historic Hay's Dock in Lerwick. Dedicated to showcasing objects and artefacts which demonstrate the heritage of Shetland, there are separate collections covering natural history, archaeology, social history, traditional life, industry, fishing, textiles, and maritime history. The afternoon is free to explore Lerwick at leisure or join an optional boat trip, weather permitting, which sails around Bressay and the cliffs of the famous Noss National Nature Reserve.

We start our day with a walk along the sand tombolo to St Ninian’s Isle. The 500m long sandy tombolo is subject to waves from opposing directions and they break in glorious symmetry simultaneously along its length. During low tides it can be 70m wide, but during high spring tides the centre can become submerged. On the Isle we see St. Ninian’s Chapel first erected in the 12^th century for the benefit of both local worshippers. Excavations conducted here are famous for the recovery of an unparalleled hoard of Pictish silver objects, but they also provided evidence for the lower courses of a probable early historic church at the southern side of the medieval nave and for the remains of an Iron Age settlement. In the afternoon we visit Sumburgh cliffs, home to thousands of seabirds in the breeding season, with puffins, guillemots, razorbills, fulmars, kittiwakes, and shags easily viewed. It is also one of the best places in Shetland to watch for sea mammals. We will visit the Sumburgh Lighthouse RSPB Visitor Centre which contains a superb natural history exhibition and many aids to interpreting what you can see on the cliff edges.

Our tour ends today, and we make our independent journeys home.