No real need for a general route map this week as the drive from Dundee to Aberdeen is a mere 66 miles north along the coast. From there to Lerwick we took the overnight Northlink ferry; the rest of the driving was local around Lerwick. Local maps will be inserted as part of the daily narrative as required.
Monday morning, after another nice breakfast (we have had nothing but excellent breakfasts at all of our B&B stays on this trip), we drove east to Broughty Ferry for a couple of morning lattes at Cafe Nero and to find a post office where we could purchase a mailer bag for some wool Kris wanted to ship home.
The drive north to Aberdeen on A90 is pretty boring although the farmlands along the way looked to be very fertile. We were told later, that this is some of the most fertile farmland in Scotland. We were surprised that we did not see many sheep along the way. One small acreage as we neared Aberdeen was about it. We found the Ibis Hotel in central Aberdeen, they allowed us an early checkin, dropped off the luggage then headed for the Arnold Clark car rental place to return the car.
It might be somewhat ironic that after having used our own Garmin GPS (with the United Kingdom map set) pretty well everywhere in Ireland and Scotland, it was unable to direct us to the Arnold Clark place. We had to turn it off and turn on the GPS supplied with the car. It directed us there fine. We got the car returned and they were kind enough to use one of their shuttle vans to take us back to our hotel (they usually use their shuttle vans exclusively for airport transport).
Back at the hotel we phoned our good friend Ann, had a brief chat and arranged for her and Andy to pick us up at 6:00PM and we'd go off somewhere for dinner. We had a bit of a rest then walked over to Union Street to look in a few shops (mostly M&S again); found a post office where Kris could mail her wool home; then walked back to the hotel. Ann and Andy showed up right on time and took us out to the
Toby Carvery Cocket Hat restaurant. This is an interesting buffet style type of place. They offer 3 or 4 different type of roasts (pork, ham, turkey on this night) from which they carve off a slice of each (or a couple off just one or two if you like) which you are limited too. They also have a whack of different vegetables of which you can take as much as you want. The food was excellent and the company even better :-) :-) :-)
Tuesday morning, before Ann and Andy picked us up at 11:00 AM, we walked up to Cafe Nero on Union Street to have lattes along with scones with clotted cream and strawberry jam. BUT, they were all out of clotted cream (mini disaster!!!). Butter and jam would have to do this day.
Our adventure for the day was a drive out to Fyvie Castle, about 25 miles north west of Aberdeen...
... where we all had a nice soup & sandwich type lunch in their cafe then joined a tour of the castle. The docent guiding the tour was really good at providing a picture, in our minds, of the people and the lifestyles of the castle throughout the years. Lots of great period furniture etc...
They say Fyvie Castle is haunted but none of us experienced any ghostly apparitions on this day. Maybe, after a busy summer season, the ghosts have all taken a holiday themselves. After the tour we visited the gift shop where Ann bought us a beautiful scarf and a box of Scottish fudge (bad Ann bad!) :-). Leaving the castle we wandered through the beautiful garden area...
On the way back to Aberdeen we stopped for some tea and cakes in at
Morris's Hotel in Oldmeldrum before Ann and Andy dropped us back at our hotel. Very nice day. For dinner, later, we walked up the street to The Archibald Simpson, a Wetherspoon pub for a couple of tasty cottage pies, wine and a good pint of Guiness. Archibald Simpson was a Scottish architect who played a part in fashioning Aberdeen as "The Granite City".
Wednesday morning we took a package of knitting yarn to a local post office to have it shipped home. Turns out that buying one, two or three skeins at a time can really add up when it comes to luggage space. Based on a brochure we had picked up at a post office in Dundee, we expected the package to cost about 30 GBP (45+ $CDN) to ship home second class which would take a few months. Turned out to be 18 GBP (30 $CDN) for tracked airmail. It will get home before we do! Leaving the post office we stopped in Marks & Spencer and picked up a small container of clotted cream in case Cafe Nero was still deficient in that regard. Turns out they had some, so we donated our newly purchased wee container to Ann and Andy when they picked us up later in the morning.
Our adventure on this foggy, windy day was a drive south to the town of Stonehaven. We had a nice walk around the beautiful sheltered harbour, a visit to a cool little museum followed by a Cullen Skink soup and sandwich lunch at the charming
Marine Hotel overlooking the harbour...
After lunch Andy drove up to the headlands overlooking
Dunnottar Castle. From the viewpoint overlooking the castle, the fog was so thick we could barely make out the outline of the main castle buildings, but a display board at the viewpoint provided a nice pic...
... (on this foggy, windy ergo chilly day, we passed on walking the rather arduous trail down to the castle and back). Back in Aberdeen, Ann and Andy dropped us off at Union Square where we said our goodbyes. We wandered around the mall for a bit before heading back to our hotel to pick up our luggage and get a taxi to the Northlink ferry terminal for the overnight ferry to Shetland. That was a really nice visit to Aberdeen. Thank you Ann and Andy!
For dinner that night we had the haddock and chips on board the ferry. Sort of mediocre compared to the meals we had on the Northlink ferry from Orkney last week. Oh well, we had a fun evening chatting with another couple in the comfortable Magnus Lounge before calling it a night. The ferry ride was a tad rocking and rolling but we still got a pretty decent sleep.
We arrived in Lerwick, on time, at 7:30AM Thursday. Interesting thing about this voyage is that they allow passengers to stay on board until 9:30AM as they serve breakfast from 6:00AM to 9:00AM. Vehicle owners must disembark at 7:30AM but they are given a pass to walk back on board to have their breakfast if they wish. We definitely cannot see any BC Ferry routes offering a service like that!
We walked off the ferry about 8:00AM, picked up our rental car and then drove across town to
Fjara, our favourite breakfast restaurant when we were here two years ago, for a landlocked breakfast instead of staying on the ferry. Fjara's egg and sausage bap along with their lattes were as good as they were two years ago. Yummm. Since our apartment had not been used the night before, our new landlord, for the next 10 days, allowed us to gain access mid morning. That was a nice gesture!
We found a place where we could drop off our laundry, then went to Tesco to pick up some groceries so that we could make our own lunch and dinner for the first time in a month. Nice salad with cheese, sliced ham, lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers definitely did the trick. Late afternoon we picked up our laundry then drove over to the
Mareel Centre to buy tickets to the evening showing of
Downton Abbey. Went home for a brief rest, some purchased cottage pie for dinner then back to the theatre to see the show. Excellent; the costuming in this show is just fabulous!
Friday, after what will become our usual Fjara breakfast, we stopped in Tesco for some groceries then back home to the apartment. We walked into the central Commercial Street of Lerwick and browsed through many of the stores there. Much beautiful Fair Isle themed jewelry and knitted goods to be had in this city. Back at the apartment for a smoked salmon salad for lunch then we drove over to Jamieson & Smith Wool Brokers where Kris picked up two kilo's worth of roving and had it shipped home. She'll have lots of fun spinning that over the next quite a while at home. Mid afternoon we decided to head out of town to Scalloway, another nearby beautiful little seaside village. Unfortunately on this day most wee stores were already closed by 4:00PM so we just walked along the Main Street fronting the harbour. Nice little memorial for the
Shetland Bus, a clandestine service that was used to aid in the allied defence of Norway after the Nazi invasion of Norway during WWII...
While in Scalloway we decided to drive out and find Uradale Farms and the Red Houss to become familiar with the location of these Wool Week venues we will be attending.
For dinner, back in Lerwick, we thought we would go to the pub in the Queen's Hotel, a place we frequented when we were here 2 years ago. A tad disappointing as we had ordered one drink each when we asked to see menus but were informed they were only providing meals for hotel guests this day. We hadn't come to just drink so left the mediocre wine and beer behind and walked along Commercial Street to the Grand Hotel (
owned by the same hotel group) where we had a pretty good meal of haddock and chips each along with better tasting drinks.
Saturday, the day before "wool week" started, we decided to visit the northern Isles. Two years ago, we went up to the far northern Isles but it was Oct 1st and everything, and we mean everything, had closed for the season on Sep 30th. This year they decided to keep everything open through wool week so we were good to go to visit a few places. We grabbed a quick breakfast at Fjara before heading north to catch the 9:45AM ferry from Toft to Ulsta on the Isle of Yell, arriving in Toft about 15 minutes early, enough time to finish the take away lattes we had picked up at Fjara. Getting off the ferry in Ulsta, we immediately took off for the north end of Yell and the ferry terminal at Gutcher hoping to just make the ferry to Belmont on the Isle of Unst. When we were here two years ago, the ferries synched up nicely but not this day. No where near close. We had to wait another hour for the ferry. Oh well. Off the ferry we kept on north to Haroldswick and the
Unst Heritage Centre. There they had a great collection of Shetland lace work along with the normal permanent exhibits depicting early life on these remote islands. They asked us to not take any photos so we abided with this request. Interesting place. Leaving the Heritage Centre we stopped in at
Victoria's Vintage Tea Room (still on Unst) where the soup of the day (Lentil) was very tasty. Beside the tea room is the
Unst Boat Haven, which houses many examples of fishing boats and equipment used as far back as the early 1800's along with many stories relating to the local fishing communities. Another very interesting place worth visiting...
Back on the Isle of Yell, we headed south on a long dingle-berry single track back road to Burravoe, home of the
Old Haa, Yell's Historic Museum. Yet another very interesting place. The woman looking after the place was so nice, Brian insisted on trying a piece of one of the tasty looking cakes she had on display. We had a nice chat with her while we finished off the piece of carrot cake (and it was tasty) then headed to Ulsta and the ferry back to the Shetland mainland.
Back on the mainland, we decided to try out
Frankie's Fish & Chips, in Brae, the UK's most northerly fish and chip shop and voted, in 2015, to be the best fish and chip shop in the UK. Pretty good credentials to say the least. And, they did not disappoint. We managed to snag a table in the very busy seating area and placed our order. Everything is takeaway at Frankie's but they do provide a seating area of about 8 or 9 tables along with a few picnic tables outside. We ordered a couple of their "peerie portions" (meaning wee kid's portions) which turned out to be more than enough for us. The regular sized portions being eaten by others around us were quite large actually. It was excellent food. The breaded haddock was perfect and the chips were as well. The entire time we were there it was a steady crowd of people moving through. A very popular place for such a wee town. It is about a half hour drive north of Lerwick so we will likely return before the end of wool week.
Back in Lerwick we dropped the car off at the apartment then walked down the block to the Douglas Arms pub. One side was "the bar" and it was noisy with a group of young folks out on a birthday celebration pub crawl. They were quite well behaved though. The other side was the "lounge bar", much quieter but quite full with folks that appeared to be regulars. It was well decorated with
Up Helly Aa paraphernalia and photos. Had a good chat with Tony who we took to be quite a regular himself. Pretty decent old pub.
Sunday was our first "
Shetland Wool Week" event. Note, the URL link to Shetland Wool Week is for their generic website so the contents will definitely change over time. This first event was a tour of the
Uradale organic sheep farm...
... situated outside of Lerwick near the town of Scalloway. Ronnie, the owner, gave us an excellent demonstration of how the border collies are used to round up the sheep as well as a very interesting talk on what it takes to be a successful "organic sheep farmer" (with full certification). Afterwards, his family treated us to a nice lunch of soup and tray baked goodies, then all the knitters in the crowd descended on the farm's retail space and snared themselves some fantastic yarns for knitting projects to be completed later. Kris was no exception. Here's a sample of the colours she picked...
... beautiful colours. After the sheep farm event we had all afternoon to explore so headed to the northern part of the Shetland mainland to Ollaberry...
... where the community was putting on a craft exhibition in conjunction with Wool Week. When we arrived at the Ollaberry community hall, Brian decided to have a nap in the car while I, Kris, went in and had a look around. He said "come get me if there is anything interesting". WOW... what a fantastic display of Shetland lace work and Fair Isle type knitting...
I had a great look around and chatted with a number of ladies putting on a display of knitting and wool spinning. Afterwards, I decided I couldn't deprive Brian of the huge selection of cakes and tray bakes from which you could "eat all you want" for the mere 6 quid it cost to get into the exhibition. So I went out and woke him and told him he might want to see some of the exhibits. Well, when he paid his 6 quid and walked in the door and saw the table of food goodies, I thought his eyes were going to pop right out of his head...
We both had a further look around the exhibits picking up a cute little sweater shaped ceramic brooch, a knitting gauge and a pair of fingerless mitts...
... before setting on the table of goodies. We limited ourselves to 4 pieces each which was more than enough, although others around us were not hindered by such personal limitations :-) Apparently the women of Ollaberry are well known for their baking and they are good at it.
Back at the apartment we heated up a pre-made Tesco cottage pie (very similar to shepherd's pie) with veggies for dinner and relaxed for the evening. Really nice end to the week.
