Day 15 - Mousa Island and Sandwick peninsular
Another day of full sun although it was windy, especially on the boat. When out of the wind it felt really warm.
Today we went to Mousa Island. Mousa is an RSPB reserve just off the south east coast of Mainland and is an important nesting site for the Storm Petrel which can best be seen late at night as they arrive back to their nests after a day at sea. A passenger boat goes over 6 days a week at 11.30am for a 3 hour trip from Sandsayre Pier.
On the rather choppy crossing, we were given a lot of information about the history of Mousa. It used to be inhabited but the last resident left in 1853. On the 1841 census 5 people are showing as living at The Haa on Mousa, 3 of which were servants. There is a Broch which is the best preserved anywhere as you can still climb the stairs to the top. This is because the quality of stone on Mousa is better than that on the Mainland and it has really stood the test of time. It was already 1500 years old when the Vikings invaded. There are also the remains of a mill and settlement.
Mousa is exactly 60 degrees north. On the island is a 2.5 mile circular walk with good views all around. Visitors are not allowed to stray from the path. We saw 3 tents pitched near the pier which are for the RSPB wardens who are currently there carrying out studies. We could walk either clockwise or anticlockwise. The recommended way was anticlockwise so we did this along with most of the others. The Broch was very impressive and we could climb the very narrow staircase. We were advised to face the handrail (put there in recent years to help get to the top) and walk sideways as the treads were only a few inches wide in places. I managed to get to the top from where there were great views.
After completing the walk we had 30 minutes before the boat left so we went back to the 90 degree seat for our lunch.
Once back on the mainland we explored this small peninsular. We first went to Sandwick which is one of the larger settlements. At the Spar shop we had an ice cream and bought a locally made pie for dinner. We went on to the visitor centre at Hoswick which has a really good timeline showing how Shetland has developed since man first inhabited it. We also visited a jewellery outlet where a local artist designs and makes all sorts of jewellery.
A few of the roads that we took led to dead ends but one led to Cumlewick. We thought this was another dead end but a very friendly local man who was driving a quad bike with a trailer containing 4 young girls stopped us and asked if we were lost. We said we were just going down to take a look and hoping to find a nice viewpoint or beach. He told us to follow him and he went down a road that said no vehicles except those going to the houses. He said to ignore this and showed us where to park at the top of a hill and below was a beautiful secluded beach and, apart from a few Sanderlings, we were the only ones there. We found the remains of sea urchins on the beach so think the birds carry them from the tideline, eat the insides and discard the outer shells. There were also some very pretty shells.
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