Day 16 Lerwick in Shetland to Lunna House
This morning we arrived on the Shetland Islands into the largest city, Lerwick. We docked at just after 7 am making it a 13 hour crossing.
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| The view from the ferry coming into Lerwick, Shetland Islands |
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| Lerwick Shetland Islands |
It was very smooth with only a gentle rocking motion. The food on board was fine with a bistro style menu but Dale is quite happy with the Haddock (somewhat similar to our flake). The layout of the ferry was almost exactly the same as the Spirit of Tasmania and the staff where so helpful and pleasant. It was lovely to see that we had tea and coffee facilities in each cabinet rather than having to go upstairs to buy one especially first thing in the morning! Another wonderful bonus is that you can stay on board to have breakfast. Drivers are asked to take the cars off the ferry but can park them onshore in a special parking area and return to finish breakfast. Much more civilised!
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| Drivers start your engines - preparing to leave the ferry. |
We opted to have our breakfast on shore. On leaving the boat we were greeted by representatives of the car show committee and they commented that we were the very first cars to arrive. While it was quite cold it was the wind that was the problem. Very gusty.
We stopped at a lovely new café just outside Lerwick on the foreshore. David suggested we should first stop at the visitors centre in Lerwick and Noeline wanted to stop at Boots Pharmacy to see if she could get something to help with a blocked ear.
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| Breakfast stop in Lerwick |
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| Seals in Lerwick. |
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| Alley ways leading away from the main road in Lerwick |
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| Alvi in Lerwick - they tended to attract crowds whenever we parked. |
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| Scalloway Castle |
We then visited the museum in Scalloway to see the Shetland Bus display as this would be relevant to our stay at Lunna House.The "Shetland
Bus" was the name given to the team of Norwegian Fishing boats (and their crews) which were used
to transport refugees and arms in and out of Norway during World War 2. These brave men crossed the
short but extremely dangerous stretch of water in the depths of winter to
rescue a large number of men, women and children.
We then moved on to the museum in Lerwick which detailed the natural history of the Shetland Islands including the workshops creating boat replicas including one of the small boats used by the Shetland Bus crews.
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| Typical rock samples in the Lerwick museum |
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| Lerwick Museum: replica "sixeren" used for fishing and whaling |
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| Replica of small boat used by the Shetland Bus boat crews |
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| Shetland ponies |
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| Strong influences from Scandinavia evident everywhere in Shetland |
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| Views across the fields |
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| Ruins on the road to Lunna |
In the afternoon we made our way across the island from Lerwick about an hours drive north. We were lucky enough to be staying at Lunna House which has a pivotal history on the island related to the Shetland Bus. David is close friends with our hosts Helen and Tony both of whom were there to greet us. Not having met them before it was a little surprising but Helen rushed over and hugged each and every one of us. It was a wonderful start to our Shetland experience.
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| Speed 20 at Lunna House |
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| We (including McFritz) arrive at Lunna House |
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| View from Lunna House |
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