A Fair Isle, indeed

 

We drove down to Tingwall in plenty of time for our flight to Fair Isle.  Very exciting.  We watched the plane take off on its flight to Foula and watched it land on its return.  There were 6 of us on the flight squashed in behind the pilot, who was very friendly.  I was a bit nervous, especially at take off and landing when there was a lot of "shoogling".  The views were tremendous.  We could see several places we had already visited - Scalloway, Meal Beach, Minn Beach, St Ninian's Isle, Sumburgh Head.  The colours of the sea were amazing.  The runway on Fair Isle was a bit like an old school football pitch. 

We set off on our walk - we only had about 5 hours, so felt under pressure to get moving.  Walked to the west coast and north to the highest point, Ward Hill.  The cliffs were amazing and scary, again.  And lots more puffins, al the way round.  There were also lots of bonxies - attacking us everywhere we went.  I used my scarf to scare them off and that worked pretty well.  Walked down to the lighthouse at the north of the island.  Met a warden who were doing some whale watching - but she had not seen any either!  Then a guy popped up from the cliff - he and some others were down doing some monitoring and ringing of the new chicks.  He showed us a photo of a 2 day old razorbill chick in his hand - very fluffy.  We had lunch with a great view of the lighthouse and cliffs.

We then walked south again along the east coast.  Found the bay where the Good Shepherd (the ferry to Shetland) had just left from.  It was gorgeous - almost tropical, especially with a yacht all the way from Australia.  We stopped for a paddle and a snack before walking on to get a close up view of Sheep Rock and then walking back to the airport, avoiding the bonxies on the way.

The return flight was just as spectacular.  It was such a lovely evening we decided we had to do something else before going back to the caravan and drove to Meal Beach for a last look.  Robert went in for a swim.  Back at the caravan we had carry out dinner from Frankie's Fish and Seafood - Mussels, Scallop, Haddock and Chips.  Delicious.