We checked out and drove a few minutes up the road to the Keen of Hamar, but it was cold, wet and windy so we didn’t bother to walk up the hill to look at the wild flowers. Instead, we drove down to Belmont and caught the ferry back to Yell. We drove north to Breckon. The weather brightened up. The grass in the meadows was green, and the meadows and roadsides were full of wild flowers: red campions, yellow vetch, purple orchids. We parked in a small yard next to a farm building and walked down to a pristine beach called the Sands of Breckon. A flotilla of shags bobbed and dived in the crystal blue water.
We crossed the beach and found wild rocket growing, identified thanks to the information board where we’d parked the car. We climbed the dunes and walked along the top of the Ness of Houlland through swathes of pink sea thrift until we reached the end. It was wild and blustery. We watched terns plunge-diving. We walked back to the car past through some norse rubble, remnants of a farmstead. High up it was very windy with 60mph gusts.
We drove down to the south west corner of Yell, stopping on the way at Windhouse, near Mid Yell. It’s a ruined building, on the site of a 2000-year-old settlement. We drove up a track and walked up to the house, supposed to be the most haunted site on Shetland. Ravens were swooping and cronking overhead, but ghosts and ectoplasm were notable only by their absence.
We parked on a track overlooking Southladie Voe to eat lunch of bread and oatcakes and Orkney cheese. It was very windy, with squally rain showers.
After lunch we drove a few miles towards Sound. On the way we tried to drive up a rough track to the high central moors, but had to turn back after about a mile as the Skoda didn’t have enough clearance to clear the high centre of the track, which had been scouring the underside of the car. True enough, a large red sign had said “Agricultural track” earlier on.
At Stambery Houll we parked at the end of a track next to a deserted farm, and walked along the edge of the Wick of Sound and out along a spit where terns and ringed plovers were nesting, up on to the Ness of Sound. It was machair underfoot, a thin layer of peat with a patchwork of colourful moss and lichens. The views from the top were spectacular.
After that we headed to Ulsta and drove straight on to the ferry to the mainland. One brief glimpse of an otter near the shore, lying on its back and then turning to dive, tail in the air, just as the ferry was leaving. On the 15-minute ferry trip we watched birds: puffins, gannets, guillemots, etc.
We headed to the hotel, stopping to look across at the Sullom Voe oil terminal on the way.
The Busta House hotel is comfortable, in a different league to the Baltasound place. A labyrinth of uneven passageways leads to our room on the top floor. Everywhere is heavily carpeted apart from the pleasant lounge, which is light and airy and comfortable, but still not short of soft furnishings. Nice gardens lead down a short track to a jetty in Busta Voe.
Dinner in the restaurant was an overdone affair: four courses, R had soup, mussels, haddock covered in salmon blanketed in an unnecessary creamy sauce and the finest four fridge-cold cheeses the local co-op could supply, including chilli cheese and white stilton with cranberries. Tomorrow we’ll try eating in the bar.