Shetland, day 2
| Date | Trip |
| 04.07.26 | The Knab, Lerwick |
| 05.07.26 | Ronas Hill, Lanchestoo, Faan Hill, Sae Breck |
| 06.07.26 | Scalla Field, Hook Kame, Scalloway, Minn Beach, The Ward |
| 07.07.26 | Sumburgh Head, The Compass, Fitful Head, St Ninian’s Isle, Ward of Scousburgh |
| Date | Peak | Height | PF | Location | WCP/FP | MAP |
| 05.07.26 | Ronas Hill | 450m | 450m | Shetland (mainland) | – | MAP |
| 05.07.26 | Lanchestoo | 130m | 113m | Shetland (mainland) | – | MAP |
| 05.07.26 | Faan Hill | 173m | 147m | Shetland (mainland) | – | MAP |
| 05.07.26 | Sae Breck | 62m | 33m | Shetland (mainland) | – | MAP |
Ronas Hill
Sunday: We had properly “landed” on Shetland and were ready to go “hillbagging”, but first, Anne needed her morning bath.
After Anne’s morning swim, it was time for breakfast. We had found our breakfast place in “The new Harbour Café”.
I would assume that the breakfast was typical British.
It was a beautiful day, and we looked forward to get on the road.
A bit later, we followed the A970 almost to the north end of “the mainland” and I enjoyed the driving. I had control of the lane and on the gearbox and I enjoyed myself.
After a while, we got Ronas Hill in view.
We turned left onto the road leading to Collafirth Hill (233m). The road was a little bumpy, but driveable. The hike up to Ronas Hill didn’t look very challenging…
Soon, we were on our way…
After a while, we parted. I wanted to hike across Mid Hill (388m). Anne wasn’t interested. I couldn’t blame her.
After visiting a very little exciting top, I continued towards Ronas Hill…
… and caught up with Anne.
The hill was longer than it appeared to be…
The locals didn’t pay much attention to us…
But eventually, we got up. Now – where is the high point?
We visited all the humps on the summit plateau and trusted we had found the official high point.
The views were not that exciting, but I guess we were measuring from Norwegian standards. Unfair, but still…
It was cool to see to the north end of the Shetland mainland, though.
Time for the last pictures before we return…
It was nice to get the Shetland high point “in the bag”. The rest of the day would be a bonus.
Trip statistics: 6,9km, 320 vertical meters, 1h:58m
Lanchestoo
As we were up in the north, we might as well visit the top Lanchestoo. It was clear that we had to drive to the small village Isbister and hike from there.
The small village was nice.
There was only one potential problem…
What the information board didn’t mention was that there were bulls on the field.
In case we needed a place to hide, we found a fridge. We would just have to empty it before going into hiding.
We took the chance…
Passing through the bulls and cows was a bit scary, but they didn’t display any aggression.
A parcel of Eurasian oystercatchers took off. A nice sight!
Eventually, we left the road (leading to the Fethaland lighthouse) and sat course for the top.
A few minutes later, we were up.
We had a friendly competition about who could get to the top of the summit marker in the shortest amount of time. It would be wrong of me to reveal the winner of the competition…
It was tempting to proceed to the Fethaland lighthouse, but it would cost is time and we had more likely a better candidate on our to-do list.
From the top, we could see over to the island Yell cliffs. Very cool!
We considered if we should head down to the cliffs below, but our conclusion was that they were not “cool enough” compared to where we wanted to go later in the day.
So, we returned to Isbister, but we avoided the cattle…
Life seemed good at this part of the world. I might have enjoyed it, but it just isn’t alpine enough…
Back at Isbister, it was time to raid the fridge…
Trip statistics: 2,4km, 120 vertical meters, 0h:56m
Faan Hill
The plan now was to drive to see the Esha Ness cliffs. I had no idea what the area would look like, but “cliffs” sounded nice. Esha Ness was a place Anne wanted to go to.
But on our way there, we passed Faan Hill and it seemed like a really short hike. Anne said it was OK if I went up while she waited. I gladly accepted the offer…
It didn’t take long to get on top of the hill, but where the heck was the high point? There was no summit marker and which of the turfs was the highest point?
I had no other option to visit all of the turfs that could be the high point.
After a while, I decided on a point and enjoyed a nice view towards Ronas Hill.
I also took a picture of a couple of wind turbines on Hill of Ollaberry …
… before I returned to Anne.
Trip statistics: 2,3km, 135 vertical meters, 0h:34m
Esha Ness & Sae Breck
On our way to Esha Ness, we passed the cool “Dore Holm” islet.
When we got to Esha Ness, we parked by the lighthouse.
It didn’t take more than a minute to figure out that this was a place worth exploring…
The inlet Calders Geo was amazingly cool.
No wonder this is such a popular tourist attraction!
Clearly, we had to walk around this inlet!
A paradise for nesting birds…
The cliffs were amazing, but would it be “complete” without a top, regardless how small, to “tie” this walk to? I decided not to mention anything yet…
First, we had to visit the cliffs…
Later on, I learned that there should be a cave here, seen from where we stood. But as we didn’t know about it, we didn’t look for it either…
After walking around the inlet, we continued towards some distinct sea stacks…
This was quite spectacular!
In the distance, we still had eyes on Ronas Hill.
A Ringed Plower (Charadrius hiaticula, “Sandlo” in Norwegian) caught my attention…
Then we headed down to the small lake – Loch of Framgord.
There wasn’t a waterfall, but more spectacular terrain was awaiting…
This was a good time to introduce my desire to stop by Sae Breck – whopping 62m above sea level and its prominence is nothing to brag about. I said to Anne that she didn’t have to come along, but she wanted to.
It didn’t take long to reach the top.
There was a hexagonal tower or ruin on top. They way I understand this, is that this used to be a broch (a type of circular tower built during the Iron Age, exclusively in Scotland. Then, in the 1800-1900 century, this became a coastguard lookout tower and today, this is an Ordnance Survey trigonometric point. The original broch was almost certainly not hexagonal, so the current building is likely built on top of the one from the Iron Age.
The Dore Holm islet was still in our view, but we couldn’t see the hole from our position.
We decided to return to the lighthouse via the cliffs.
Amazing cliffs here also…
But now it was time to call it a day and return to the hotel…
Trip statistics: 4,7km, 130 vertical meters, 1h:29m
Back in Lerwick
Back in Lerwick, we went to The Dowry for dinner. We had (of course) made a reservation online earlier in the day.
The place was nice. Anne ordered the Seafood Tagliatelle while I went for the Grilled 8oz Sirloin. The steak looked gorgeous, but the taste didn’t quite deliver on the expectations. I asked Anne to take a bite and she replied “boring”.
Anne’s Tagliatelle was however delicious. Clearly my choice if we were to eat here again (and we did. For 3 days in a row)…
Later in the evening, Norway was playing Brazil in the World Cup knockout rounds. We stopped by a couple of bars to see if we wanted to see the match there, but the bars were incredibly noisy. Or – we had gotten too old for bars. In any case – we enjoyed the match from our hotel room and were a bit stunned that we beat Brazil in the World Cup – again!
