En route A. receives an email from NorthLink Ferries confirming that our Saturday sailing to the mainland has been cancelled, and advising us that alternative arrangements will follow. A. immediately booked us into The Scalloway Hotel for Saturday night. Thirty minutes later A. received a phone call from NorthLink to confirm that we have been booked onto the 16:30 crossing on Sunday 5th; and that the car will be traveling separately so we need to drop it at the freight ferry terminal by mid-day Sunday. With our departure sorted we can relax for the day knowing that we have an escape plan.
Our first stop on the tour is Old Scatness Broch where we were given a guided tour by Val Turner, Shetland’s Lead Archaeologist – and author of Historic Scotland’s Ancient Shetland (1998) which I have referenced several times before elsewhere in this blog.
I should have taken notes throughout the tour, as we heard a richness of detail beyond the cold text of the guidebooks, from an engaging expert who had been completely involved with the original archaeological investigation of the site. I was a bit of a fanboy and probably asked to many annoying questions in the hope of impressing?
After the Broch tour we visited Laxdale Yarn a croft with a herd of Ca. 800 sheep. The croft had supplied the yarn for my “Shetland Wool Week” Fair Isle hat, which A. had knitted for me in time for the festival.
We were introduced to some of the flock and shown the differences in natural wool colour which all had different names (again taking some notes here might have been helpful).
A sheep-shearing demonstration was then given, with one of the stragglers that had escaped the July shearing, being shorn in front of us. Even with mechanical shears it was clear that this was a physical workout for both sheep and shearer alike – the tangled wool mass of the straggler apparently taking over twice as long to shear as it would do in the summer.
The fleece was then processed – the waste wool being removed and the remainder prepared for sale or competition alike. At the same time the Crofter told us about the social history and economics of sheep farming and crofting on the islands – even at an economy of scale the industry only survives due to government supplements.
After being dropped back in Lerwick we retired to the The Peerie Shop Cafe for a late lunch. I opted for the Scotch Pie which was made with mutton from The Silly Sheep Fibre Company A simple act of nutrition which for me aptly squared the circle of our journey through Shetland Wool Week (it tasted great too).
This afternoon we explored Clickimin Broch before retreating to the cottage ahead of Storm Amy. We had spent time here before in 2016 but this earlier visit, along with several other Shetland archaeological highlights failed to make it into the Blog that year due to time constraints.
The grassland leading to the Broch yielded a new fungi species for us: Butter Waxcap (Hygrocybe ceracea) with a couple of specimens present.
In celebration of the last day of our official Shetland Wool Week tour I cracked open the UHA'25 IPA from Lerwick Brewery.
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