Unst is a quirky little island and one thing it’s famous for is Bobby’s bus shelter. It all started when a 6 year old boy was fed up with the poor state of his local bus shelter and wrote to the council. A new one was promptly erected and then some strange things started happening….
Category: Europe
Puffins, gannets and idyllic beaches | Unst Island, Shetland
Hermaness Nature Reserve is situated at the most northern part of Britain on the island of Unst. The sea cliffs are home to thousands of nesting birds including puffins and gannets. A boardwalk led us across the moorland until we arrived on a grassy topped cliff with a huge drop down to the open sea….
Attacking birds, coastal hikes and otters on Britain’s most northerly island
Shetland is an archipelago made up of 100 islands, 16 of which are inhabited. The biggest island is known as the mainland and further north there’s Yell and then Unst – the most northerly island in Britain which had donned the catchphrase ‘The island above all others’. Our plan was to island hop from Yell,…
Exploring St Ninian’s Tombolo | Shetland
St Ninian’s Tombolo is a sandbank that connects the mainland to St Ninian’s Isle. It’s accessible even at low tide unless there’s very high tides and rough sea. It was a cloudy day – in fact a local we spoke to said they’ve had nothing but cloud for three weeks, so the beach didn’t look…
A spontaneous decision to travel to the Shetland Islands
The possibility of seeing Orcas is all it took for us to book the 13 hour ferry from Aberdeen to Lerwick on the Shetland Islands. It was a very expensive ferry so in an attempt to keep the costs down we opted for the free recliner seats instead of a bed. There were about 15…
Hidden waterfalls, jungle and beaches in Scotland’s East Coast
With our ferry booked for Shetland we had just a couple days to reach Aberdeen. On the route we stopped at a scenic spot by the sea. There was a tiny parking area atop a very high cliff with a view of the sea and a wide beach below us. A few wild campers had…
Helga goes in for her MOT and we cross the border into Scotland
We’ve been dreading Helga’s MOT coming up as I’m sure everyone does with their vehicles, but this was the first one since we’ve owned her. For anyone who’s not familiar with an MOT it’s basically a safety check on a vehicle in the UK and it’s a legal requirement. We always get nervous around mechanics,…
Mountain pass and idyllic camping | The Lake District
We opted to take the Honister Pass road to Buttermere Lake which turned out to be a beautiful winding road with steep mountains on either side of us. There were some lovely spots to park up and enjoy the view and one was so nice we decided to stay the night. We parked up right…
Three mountain summit hikes in the Lake District
HELVELLYN, 950m At long last the sun has returned, just for a day but heck, we were gonna make the most of it. We started with a hike up the summit of Helvellyn, which at 950m is the third highest in England. Most people approach it from Glenridding and walk the horseshoe loop around it,…
Rainbows, boat trips and beautiful valleys | The Lake District
After a week enjoying an English heatwave in the Yorkshire Dales we ended up celebrating my birthday on a miserable, rainy day. We didn’t sleep well either due to an invasion of pesky midges so instead of doing something special we just had a chore day which was fine by me. We headed into Kendal…