Safe Return Doubtful

Lunna will stick in my memory for a long time, chiefly due to the hospitality of its residents, all six of them, in just three houses.

When we arrived we went as far as the road goes, to the peninsula’s northwest side, and a farm called Outrabister. We hadn’t been parked up for long when the owner of the house, no longer a farm, came to say hello. 70 year old Frank lives with his Jack Russell named Joe, in the huge house, which must be at least six bedrooms. We chatted for a while and he invited me over a cup of tea later in the evening.

The reason I was on the peninsula was to hike to track that goes around it, but in two sections. It can be done in one, but would be a serious mission, as on the ocean side the path is nothing more than sheep trods, and quite often not even that. It’s boogy, deep with heather, steep-sided and plenty of up and down. Sections with cliffs mean you have to come inland for some way, so the distance is far more than initially estimated. It’s in the Cicerone book, and more evidence that the author hasn’t actually walked the trail himself.

The first half though, to the headland, is straightforward. On this section I met a Swiss couple who visited Shetland every year, and even walked the same trails every year. They just walked the first section, then returned on it. They recall, they told me, 18 years ago, when they took on the return, that I did, and said they would never do it again. It was a challenging but thoroughly rewarding hike, but one that I won’t be doing annually for the next 17 years..

Back at the van I drove back 5 miles or so, to Lunna House and parked at the jetty opposite it (pictured above). I wasn’t there long, and the modern-day equivalent of the Laird, the farmer, came to say hello. These old Manor House’s with their Lairds going back hundreds of years have some pretty dodgy history, and guys like Hamish have to work pretty hard to shake it off.

Lunna is a fascinating example of such a place. In the 18th century there was a fishing station at Lunna, the large ‘bod’ or booth, is next to where I stopped, and is still in really good condition. It was used in the Second World War by the Shetland Bus operation (that I wrote about previously). Boats were hidden here, and the House held ammunition, radios and even smuggled saboteurs. It’s church, or Kirk, the ruin of the old one, it’s graveyard, and new building, was opposite.

At the top of the hill in the Hunter’s Monument, from which the Laird could check the movements of his fishermen, in case they were landing their catch elsewhere.

Hamish was working as a chef in Edinburgh when his father died suddenly 5 years ago, and he came home to run the farm. He has set up a section of the huge house as tourist accommodation, built a pod for tourists also, and set up a butchery next to the bod on the jetty to process lamb. He now employs two butchers. As well as running the farm, which is sheep and cows.

On Thursday I hiked the second section of the coast, heading north on the ocean side from Lunna, knowing it would be tough. But this section has lots of small lochans and the scenery is much less harsh and wild. During my time at Lunna the weather was dry, but with a north westerly wind which made the 13C feel cool. This first section of the hike ranks right up there with the best I’ve done on Shetland. The most spectacular part was the descent to Loch Fostersgeo. Roja was as impressed as me, and tore down to it desperate to add it to his collection of lochs he has swum in. Pictured below, and second above.

We stayed two nights at Hamish’s bod, and met a few of his business acquaintances he was showing his butchery off to, as well as a couple of tourists he had staying. Other than that, there was no one around at all. It was another wonderful place to stay. Hamish offered electricity, toilets, showers, water, even a small kitchen, but I needed none of that.

This morning before I left we hiked the hills to the south for a few kilometres, on the high point of one of its dumplings is the Hunter’s Monument. It was colder today by a couple of degrees, the wind shifting to the north. The range of temperatures throughout the year isn’t very big, especially on the coast. 11C today, feeling like 7 or 8, could be any day of the year really.

I shifted south after lunch, sticking on the east coast, getting steadily closer to Lerwick, and as I do so, there is a bigger population, slightly bigger.. That means there are less options for parking up for the night. I had a couple of places in mind, and neither were suitable. Eventually I settled at the small turn around at the end of a road where I want to hike tomorrow, Kirkabister.

In other news, August arrived, and with it no news of a date for my hip operation, so I called the North Cumbria NHS. Last time I did this was just after I was back from Europe in May, and they told me they were scheduling referrals from December. I was referred on 1 February. This time I called they said exactly the same, they were scheduling December, and had moved only a couple of weeks due to catching up on cancellations. Bad news?… well no, not really. This enables me to book a Eurotunnel and make a plan for September. My preference for the treatment had been December, and that could still be the case…

So, I booked a train to Calais for 1 September, and will now spend some hours on research for the first days of the new course, heading for Croatia, the Dinaric Alps, the Via Dinarica, into Bosnia and Montenegro. More on that soon..