We have a rather wet forecast for this weekend, but decided to press on and travel south today, north tomorrow.

First stop was Hoswick, a small village on the coast with an excellent Visitor Center, and a number of specialist crafts. It was a real sunshine and showers day, perfect for photography.

One of the workshops we visited was run by Karlin Anderson, who crafts some beautiful jewellery. With a big birthday looming later on this year Hazel selected a necklace featuring a blue topaz surrounded by green tourmaline’s. It reflects the blue sea and green land right viewed tight outside the workshop windows, and will be a great reminder of our time here.

It was a short drive to St Ninians Isle, which is joined to the mainland by a sand ayre or tombolo. With the sun shinning between rain fronts, and the wind howling it had a great atmosphere. You could easily imagine the Vikings raiding the Chapel there, with a hoard of silver being discovered later on.

Despite the wild conditions somebody had set up a portable sauna in the dunes, and a few people ran out for a quick dip !

With the weather just holding up our final stop was Sumburgh Head, the southernmost point of Shetlands mainland. To get there we had to go through the airport, literally. The main road crosses the end of the runway ! and is closed by barriers when a plane takes off or lands. We were both amused to see the painted road sign, no turning off the road and driving up the runway now 😁

The wind was howling with rain fronts lashing us every few minutes as we made it up to the observatory, via a lovely couple.

On our return a puffin landed right in front of Hazel, sadly too fast for me to photograph. I was hanging onto her as we peered over the cliff edges at thousands of seabirds and crashing seas.

We had planned to visit Jarshoff, one of the best archaeological sites in the UK. Sadly it was closed today, perhaps next week ?