Lerwick
We awoke to a wintry dawn alongside in the sheltered harbor of Lerwick, the principal township and administrative centre for the Shetlands, the most northerly archipelago of the British Isles. Here the long hard winter that this part of the world experienced this year has still not relinquished its grip, and early morning snow showers had dusted the hills surrounding the town.
Our morning destinations were the archaeological site of Jarlshof and the protected nesting area on the nearby cliffs at Sumburgh Head. Jarlshof was so named by Europe’s first historical novelist, Sir Walter Scott, whose Romantic imagination was fired by the site of the ruined mediaeval dwelling at the seashore. If only he had known what lay beneath his feet. Successive archaeological excavations have revealed continues settlement at the site going back to Neolithic times, producing a site of extraordinary richness and complexity: Neolithic and Bronze Age dwellings, wheel-houses, the remains of a Pictish broch and a Viking hall. After tea and biscuits, we rode up to the cliffs at the headland for spectacular view as of nesting Atlantic seabirds: kittiwakes, fulmars and, of course, the inimitable puffins.
Those who had opted for a more leisurely morning took a walk through town from the ship to visit the splendid new Shetland Museum, which houses an impressive collection of artifacts from prehistory to the present, with an emphasis on the maritime history of the islands. A boat hall housed a collection of traditional local fishing craft and in an adjoining workshop local craftsmen were honing traditional skills making new boats to time-honored designs. There was time afterwards to visit some of the town’s wool stores, where local hand-knitted garments in traditional patterns were on sale.
Over lunch we departed Lerwick bound for Bergen in Norway, a city closer to Lerwick than Edinburgh and three times closer than London. We have been drawn incrementally into the northern realms, Shetlanders themselves speaking a Norse dialect – called Norn – until the early years of the nineteenth century. In another sense we had come full circle, re-entering the Teutonic world we had been sailing away from since leaving Dartmouth. A journey to some of the remotest locations in the Britain and Ireland, which few locals get to see in a lifetime drew to a close with a calm crossing through the Norwegian Sea and, as a grand finale, a pod of orca whales approached the ship in time for afternoon tea, in what, judging by the activities of the diving gannets, were very productive waters.
