Day 3 Busing to Walls

Day 3 - Sept 8, Tuesday   Busing to Walls

We had another very calm day today, too calm to really be the Shetland Islands. 

When I woke up about 2 or 3  in the morning (I woke up all night long and couldn’t sleep) I thought I saw a cruise ship in the harbor through my bedroom window.  Sure enough, it was still there in the daylight.  There were about 3,000 people onboard who invaded Lerwick (population 7,000) and the city seemed like a different city from yesterday.  There were people everywhere. 

We had a very leisurely breakfast of basically the same as yesterday – boy it sure is good.  Hot tea with breakfast, cooked and cleaned up by someone else, sure is nice.  We discussed what we would do today and decided not to take the Mousa boat tour.  The man said it was going to be a very busy day for him today and we found out that was true everywhere around here because of people from the cruise ship.  We called a taxi and went into town and did a little shopping.  Right, a ‘little’ shopping!!!  We bought books, tee shirts, sweat shirts, a stole, postcards, magnets, a teddy bear wearing a Shetland sweater and other woolen items.  We talked to the Tourist Info lady and she mentioned riding a bus either to the south end of the island to go to an archeological site or to the west side of the island to see the inlets of the sea, called voes (they are sort of like fjords).  We decided to go somewhere on a bus so we walked a long, long way to the bus station and talked to the driver to see where he was going.  He was going west, so we got on. 

There were several elderly ladies, yes they were even older than we are, and they actually moved to the other side of the bus and made us take their seats because they would have a better view of the sites!!  Wasn’t that nice!?!?!?!  We started out going up and down hills and then went over the hills toward the west.  This is where we saw the voes and they were beautiful.

 Well, everything was beautiful. Every so often one of the ladies would tell the driver to stop and they would get off at their houses. Those ladies answered so many questions and really made the trip even more special. We even saw about four trees in someone’s yard.  After about 45 minutes we got to the town of Walls and turned around.  Some people got off the bus to go into the little grocery store and then got back on the bus.  There were quite a few people on the bus from the ship – all the tours sponsored by the ship were sold out and all the private tours guides were booked up, so these people got on a bus to see the countryside.  We began our trip back to the bus station and I fell asleep, sitting up and swaying as the bus swayed.  I had a nice nap and I really needed it.  I suppose I slept about 30 minutes or so. 

When we got back to Lerwick, we went back to the Peerie Shop Café to get some lunch.  It was good, again.  Then we went to the public toilets, which are very nice and clean, and then we went to the little grocery store to pick up items for a picnic in our rooms at the B&B for supper.  We took a taxi back to Westhall and looked at everything we bought and rested a bit. 

A couple of us decided to walk down the lanes to the water in the harbour and look for seals, so we set out.  We didn’t even make it out the front door before we got sidetracked – see Frank, It’s not just me that gets sidetracked all the time!!  We decided to tell Julie, our hostess, about our early breakfast time for tomorrow morning because we have to leave the house at 8:15 for our driving tour up to Unst.  While talking to Julie, I asked about the best way to contact Tingwall Airport near town to see about taking a plane ride to one of the other islands.  She said to call using her phone.  So we all sat around the table and made the call.  I talked a long time to Quinton Harvey at the airfield and found that all the plane seats have been taken for this Thursday, our last day on the island!!  Durn it.  Then we discussed the possibility of us chartering a plane to take up wherever we wanted to go.  When he said the going price was 900 Pounds an hour, I stopped that idea.  However, he said you can really see a lot in 20 minutes in the air!!  Now we were getting somewhere.  He checked with someone else and corrected his price to only 700 pounds an hour.  Long story short (too late, I know) we are going on a 30 minute plane ride on Thursday around lunch time to see the Skerries (islands off to the northeast of the bigger islands) and whatever else we want to see.  After I hung up, I said that I didn’t know how we were going to get to the airfield and Julie said she’d drive us.  Isn’t that nice?!?!?!  So, I offered for her to go up in the plane with us and she said yes.  She’s really excited about it, as are the rest of us.  It’s gonna be great.  May be ‘breezy’ that day, but since the wind is supposed to be from the south, it’s not gonna be a problem, so said Quinton anyway.  I wonder if I’ll get to throw up in a plane!?!?!?!  Something to look forward to finding out about. 

After all that, we left for the harbor.  It was quite a long walk and we ending up unknotting the rope holding a gate shut (Shame on you, Sue!!) and going into a field that is right on the harbor.  It was very uneven ground, but we tried to be careful. 

 

No one fell until we were back at the gate about an hour later – that was a successful walk.  We did get to see seals on the rocks and thanks to very good telephoto lenses, we could see the seals up close.  They were are nice and plump.

 

 We also got to see the cruise ship pick up the last little boat returning people and put the boat into its cubbyhole on the side of the ship.  Then it sounded its horn and left.  That ship will head to Norway, Iceland, Canada and then go to Brooklyn NY as its final destination.  I’m glad they are gone – just too many people.  There will another one in town on Thursday. 

We also got to see thistle.

When we finally got almost back to Westhall, we saw a girl and her Border Collie walking on the road.  It was a beautiful dog and very hyper.  Turns out, she lives next door so we walked and talked with her a while.  Teens are about the same the world around. 

 

We soon set out our picnic in the larger bedroom and sat around eating, talking and laughing about our adventures today.

  

One of us spilled our coffee on our sweater and pants while another one fell in the field.  The other stayed safe, today.  We don’t name names, so don’t ask.  As we were eating, a lady came into our room and introduced herself to us – it was the lady tour guide for tomorrow just checking in to make sure the trip was still on.  She seems very nice and we are really looking forward to the ride.

Since I couldn’t sleep last night and therefore kept Sue awake, she has decreed that I will be taking a sleeping pill tonight so that she can get some sleep!!!  I’m kinda looking forward to a good night’s sleep, but don’t tell Sue I said that.  See you tomorrow night.