Today I hand the blog over to Laura, as all I did was take a brief walk along The Esplanade and Denise bought some goodies for people at home. Other than that, it was a day of rest considering our very busy day yesterday. The Tall Ships and a cruise ship in harbour made for a busy walk, so we didn't stay out for long.
And now it's my blog (Laura here)! MWHAHAHAHAHA! Today I did many, many things and went many, many places and asked the question "Is that a road or not a road" many many times.
I came to Scotland 25 years ago next month to attend Strathclyde for teachers' college. I will always argue I got better training there that I would have if I had stayed in Ontario. While at Strathclyde, I met another Canadian, Dana, and we've been in contact on and off ever since. So it was a surprise to find out that Dana would be in Shetland, after cruising the north and Norway, during the exact same time I was here. Our paths would only cross for one day on Mainland Shetland, so we jumped at the opportunity to spend the day together.
This is Dana:
We met for breakfast at The Dowry, which was crazy busy. There wasn't an empty table in the place! We got briefly caught up, though there would be more throughout the day, and then went for a walk up and down Commercial Street. Dana is staying in Brae so this was her first time in Lerwick.
We wandered up to where she was parked, which could be one of those stories about going uphill both ways in the snow. That's how steep the hill was. It did provide a lovely view of the harbour.
We went off to the Shetland Museum. It was interesting, but I found it just a longer, more involved version of history that I got at Jarlshof yesterday. I did leave a donation, because everyone should support museums. Our history, particularly an accurate reflection of our history, is very important.
Afterward, we decided to take a trip up to North Mainland, the part I did not drive through with the epic tour guide, Jolene. We settled on heading out to the Braewick Cafe which I have heard a lot about from my parents and had yet to see. We made a few stops as the landscape was stunning.
I have to say that Dana is an excellent driver. She's been to the UK plenty of times, and has a lot of experience driving on the opposite side of the road. I was so glad she was driving.
Once at the cafe, we did something very British:
I'm not usually one for taking pictures of my food, but when one has a scone with cream and jam in the UK, one takes a picture. Despite this, I am not getting into the debate as to what goes first: the cream or the jam. I'll let the British sort that out amongst themselves.
The outside of the cafe had some amazing views so we had to take advantage of them.
When our bellies were full (like the cafe, when we arrived we got the last table), off we went further north west, following the road as far as it could go. First was the beach at Stenness but we didn't make it down to the actual beach. Though there was a crossing point at the fence, there were too many sheep, and too much of what sheep leave behind, for us to risk it. We used the excuse that neither of us were wearing serious walking shoes.
Here we are overlooking the beach at Stenness, braving the strong winds.
Braving the wind was easier than the little land mines the sheep leave behind.
Back on the road again, we went to the end of another road and found Eshaness Lighthouse.
We also tried to brave the wind to take more pictures of ourselves.
We had middling success as the wind was really out to get us.
Dana was the more prepared one and had a hair tie. Either that or I've developed a Stockholm Syndrome like relationship with the wind here.
We wandered the cliffs a little, but because of the aforementioned lack of serious walking shoes, we didn't get that far. I refuse to admit the wind and the chill had something to do with us scurrying back to the car.
Continuing our very detailed plan of where-does-this-road-lead, we found ourselves inventing a new game: is this a road or not a road. In the northwest sometimes it's hard to tell. Twice we easily decided not a road. Several were debatable. We stuck to the ones where we answered yes.
Considering there wasn't much traffic on the road we did run into a traffic jam. The others on the road just stared at us like we were the ones in the wrong place.
Sheep in the Yell are stupid. Sheep in Walls are judgmental. Southern sheep had some road sense. Northern sheep tell you where to drive.
We made our way almost to North Roe, but the road lost the game, and so we turned around and headed back towards Lerwick, heading through Brae, and past the Brae hotel where Dana was staying. There were a few more stops for good vistas.
Dana took me right to the door of 56 Commercial Street and she will likely be the last one to do so. As of tomorrow, the roads close for the Tall Ships celebration.
I may have been done for the day but Dana is an avid traveler and she headed off to Scalloway for their July fire festival. She later told me it was "quite a sight to see."
For the record:
Shetland pony count: 23
I now pass the blog back over to Dad.
No comments:
Post a Comment