VisitShetland

Shetland by Motorcycle

Journalist Ron McMillan toured Shetland by motorcycle in April 2006. This is his story...

Two Wheels Three Days Ten Islands

Eshaness Scenery

Think ‘grand motorcycle tour’, and I know what springs to mind. Noodle-fold Pyrennean switchbacks or the arrow trajectory monotony of the Nullarbor Plain; Africa’s shifting sands, Asia’s calamitous traffic or the dietary menace of middle America. Long journeys in exotic lands, thousands of miles taking weeks or months.

This is different.

This is a motorcycle adventure with a refreshing element of brevity, one that involves very few miles, even fewer hardships and no end of novelty.

Oh, and it’ll take up just a three-day weekend.

We are in Shetland, the UK’s northernmost cluster of isles, set where the mighty Atlantic body-slams the frigid North Sea. In only three days, we will criss-cross the archipelago and visit a few of its hundred islands. Perhaps even more than a few.

Day One

Sumburgh is at the southern tip of Mainland, Shetland’s largest island, and perhaps where first settlers paddled ashore in skimpy craft covered in animal skins.

At the Sumburgh Hotel, animal products vanish quickly as we demolish a cooked breakfast. Outside sits the archaeological jewel of Jarlshof, with evidence of continuous habitation since the Bronze Age. A mile away is the ongoing, equally exciting excavation at Scatness.

Sumburgh Head

Standing proud at the top of Sumburgh Head is one of ninety-seven lighthouses built around Scotland’s coastline by five generations of Stevensons, close relatives of famed author Robert Louis Stevenson. Sumburgh lighthouse is surrounded on three sides by soaring cliffs that in early summer attract puffins by the thousands. To the north, Mainland sits like a giant relief map of the journey ahead.

A levy on all North Sea oil brought ashore benefits Shetland in countless ways, none more striking than an outstanding road network.

A ‘main road’ in Shetland means a mere two lanes, but after only a handful of miles, we take to single-track rural byways with regular passing places to allow oncoming vehicles to pull aside. Delays are infrequent and allow the savouring of an ever-changing landscape. The roads vary from tightly woven to die-straight and from bowling green flat to gently undulating, and the setting makes for relaxed motorcycle touring at a leisurely pace.

It is early April, the light is sharp and there is no sign of rain. Outsiders assume Shetland to be permanently rain-lashed, but in reality, its annual rainfall is similar to Devon, in the ‘English Riviera’.

South Mainland

Bigton is no big town, but it does have a big, uninterrupted view of the North Atlantic, and a waisted tombolo of castor sugar sand to St Ninian’s island.

Uninhabited save for hardy sheep, St Ninian’s is famous for a Celtic treasure trove uncovered in 1958 by a schoolboy assisting an archeological excavation of the island’s tiny chapel.

Impressed by three important archaelogical sites within a few miles? Think again. In under 570 square miles, Shetland hosts over 6,000 archaeological sites, some pre-dating the Egyptian Pyramids by two millennia. Up here, ancient history is just around every corner.

We rejoin the main road, and before long pull into Shetland’s former capital Scalloway, a busy commercial and fishing port -- and source of the best fish and chips to be found anywhere north of, well, anywhere.

Continuing Shetland’s long-standing tradition of turning out skilled sailors working the globe’s oceans, the North Atlantic Fisheries College trains young mariners. Which is not nearly as interesting as the range of seafood at its Da Haaf Restaurant. Today, the grilled Shetland salmon is beyond compare.

Trondra island covers only one square mile, is home to around one hundred crofters and commuters, and has been linked to Scalloway by bridge for over thirty years.

Minn, Burra

Beyond Trondra, a white-flecked stream of deep blue Atlantic is spanned by bridge to Burra, twin narrow north-south spittals joined umbilically by yet another bridge. An East Burra hilltop presents 360-degree views of South Mainland, the Burras, Trondra, West Mainland and, fifteen miles out, the unmistakable silhouette of Foula island, Britain’s most isolated community.

East Burra Viewpoint

We spend the night at the home of Colin and Carol, my hosts from Shetlands Islands Cruisers, motorcycle enthusiasts promoting ties with bikers in Shetland and abroad. They live near Lerwick, so at Monty’s Bistro we feast upon beautifully prepared local ingredients in a cosy town centre location. Only the house red (a pleasing Merlot) is not from Shetland.

Great roads, excellent company, memorable food and five islands. Our adventure is off to the best of starts.

Day Two

Half of Shetland’s population live in or within ten miles of Lerwick, yet a few minutes on a ferry separates the capital from the isolated existence of Bressay Island, population four hundred. Starting out not too early, we soon hustle the bikes across Bressay’s near-deserted landscape, only an occasional cottage breaking up an expanse of muted greens and browns. Behind Bressay is the magnificent isle of Noss. Tours of Noss’s spectacular bird communes run out of Lerwick harbour year-round.

Back on Mainland, we head once more for the Atlantic coast, loop over the hills protecting Lerwick’s northern flanks, turn west near Tingwall Airport, and soon the burble of lightly stressed engines echoes around empty countryside. There are hillsides marked by generations of peat workings and innumerable lochans and birds on the wing -- and coastline to spare. Nowhere on Shetland is more than three miles from the sea, and the oceans are seldom out of view for more than a few minutes.

We pull up at the village of Sandness, where we look out to the island of Papa Stour with its striking coastline mix of unforgiving cliffs and sand beach crescents.

Mainlanders nickname the tiny road from Bixter to Voe the Khyber Pass. The narrow twisting trail is a challenge on the big motorcycles, and the hills on either side assume a presence far out of synch with their actual dimensions. At the fishing village of Aith, we watch an otter, only yards offshore, wreak merry havoc upon a school of fat fish. Our next island hop is back on the North Sea side and a ferry to Symbister on Whalsay island. A major fishing port, Symbister was once central to the Hanseatic empire that dominated European trade for hundreds of years from the thirteenth century. We walk the port then browse history in the wonderful harbourside Hanseatic Booth museum.

Leaving Muckle Roe

After a short ride to see the North Sea’s relentless assault on the island’s east coast, back on the ferry we pass Serene and Charisma, two of the huge pelagic trawlers that generate much of Whalsay’s wealth.

Long gentle road curves hug the coastline through Voe and the town of Brae before we reach the last island of the day. The 350-million-year-old extinct volcano of Muckle Roe has been connected by bridge for more than a century; its roads are some of the narrowest we have encountered to date, but it is soon marked in our record books as ‘done’. We repair to the Busta House hotel, a local laird’s mansion dating to the 1580s, for yet another gourmet threat to our waistlines.

Day Three

Before heading north, we take a detour to Eshaness, passing Mavis Grind, an isthmus so narrow that the North Sea and the Atlantic are separated by mere yards.

Eshaness is a geologist’s dreamscape of vast cliffs and skerries and offshore stacks permanently under siege from the Atlantic. Photographs taken and notes noted, we point the front wheels north again, destination Toft.

Shetland’s heavily subsidised inter-island ferries operate to strict schedules, and when the impressive Dagalien drops us on Yell, we traverse dark wilderness of cut peat and sun-starved heather. To the west, a tanker of North Sea crude creeps towards Sullom Voe terminal.

Eshaness

Gutcher is the port for the ferry to Unst, and we have time to sample the home baking at the famous Wind Dog Café -- part cafeteria, restaurant, internet café and local library. Another modern ferry drops us at Belmont on Unst, and we continue to Baltasound.

Valhalla Brewery was founded by Sonny Priest in 1997. Carol and Colin bring visiting motorcyclists to Valhalla, and Sonny gives me the tour. I leave impressed at the man’s work ethic, and eagerly anticipating the bottle of dark Sjolmet Stout, named after a breed of Shetland cattle known for its strong dark body and light-coloured head.

Hermaness is the most northerly peninsula on Britain’s most northerly populated island, and its Nature Reserve’s feathered population -- gannets, puffins, guillemots, great skuas and others -- numbers well into six figures.

Shetland spoils the visitor with one awe-inspiring cliffscape after another, and yet again the coastline of Hermaness redefines ‘spectacular’. Deeply scored precipices leap hundreds of feet from the ocean surface, every niche occupied by clustered seabirds. I trudge on until at last I reach my goal: a clear view of Muckle Flugga, a bleak storm-lashed rock beyond Unst’s northern tip, and home to another Stevenson lighthouse. This one was completed in 1858 by Robert Louis Stevenson’s father Thomas. His son visited Unst in 1869, and the map in his classic Treasure Island closely resembles Unst.

My trip is almost over, and what a journey it has been. Two wheels, three days and ten islands. With three tough hours on foot to top it off.

I turn south at last, an appointment with a bottle of Valhalla Sjolmet Stout foremost in my thoughts.

Ron McMillan is a widely-published writer and photographer who is writing a book about recent travels around Shetland. His website is: www.ronmcmillan.com

All photos on this page © 2006 Ron McMillan.

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