30 July to 10 August - Our Shetland Experience

Shortly after we arrived on Shetland, Tim and Tina arrived jet lagged and travel-weary. We let them rest for a day, and then inducted them into the Cycling On The Wrong Side Of The Street Club. A bit shaky at first, but they got the hang of it just fine.

Here we are heading across Bressay, a small island to the east of mainland Shetland. Then we headed across to Noss, which is another small island, and is entirely a nature reserve. It is an amazing place, with some of the largest sea-bird population concentrations in all of the UK.

Around the east side is the Noop of Noss, a cliff face that is nearly 600 feet high. The cliffs are covered with gannets nesting on every horizontal ledge that they can possibly squeeze. The video above doesn't really give an idea of the population of birds ... you have to see it, hear it, and smell it! Seriously, it smelled like a hamster cage that hadn't been cleaned for months, maybe even years.

Shetland is famous for the puffins, arguably the cutest birds in the world.

They're quite curious, and it's almost as though they watch us as much as we watch them. They're hilarious to watch as they fly and attempt to land - every landing is botched in one way or another! We could have spent hours watching puffins, but it was pretty windy and we were getting cold.

Following our successful tour of Noss, we celebrated our return to Bressay behind an old stone shed with a wee dram. The windbreak and whisky were much appreciated!

Here's a picture of the living room of the flat we rented. A very nice small place, located right on Commercial Street. Great view of the harbor, neat little kitchen, and other fantastic amenities for road-weary cycle tourists ... shower, roof, windows, sheets ... that kind of thing.

One great thing about staying at a flat is that we had a kitchen! So we could cook food! And having two great markets in town meant that we could enjoy real food for a while.

We found these at the co-op. We don't know what "Mr. Brain's Pork Faggots" are, but apparently they're popular because later in the week the stock was quite depleted. If any of you ever come to Shetland, try these and let us know, would you? Cheers.

We took a day tour to Scalloway on Saturday before the Fiddle Frenzy started, and toured the museum. There's a great exhibit on The Shetland Bus, which was a covert operation conducted during World War Two. Here's the monument to The Shetland Bus, on the waterfront in Scalloway.

At first, small fishing boats were used to transport men and material from Shetland to Norway, to support the Norwegian underground operations to disrupt the Nazi war machine. Many man and boats were lost until the US donated three sub-chasers in 1942. The story of The Shetland Bus is truly amazing, and anyone with an interest should search on the interwebs to learn the story of the brave souls who sacrificed so much.

The human history of Shetland goes back many thousands of years, and there are loads of excavated and stabilized archeological sites. This is a picture from a broch located at Clickimin, right near Lerwick. Brochs are huge round Iron-Age stone structures that people lived within, along with their livestock and food stores! 

And, of course, SHEEP!!! Shetland is covered in sheep, and they're really good at posing for photos.

Well, after several days of rest and recovery, we finally started on our musical adventure: The Fiddle Frenzy!

Pictured above is Bryan Gear on fiddle, playing with Violet Tulloch. This was the concert on the opening night of The Frenzy, and it was fantastic. Bryan and Violet are two of the most highly-regarded musicians in all of Scotland, and we were fortunate to hear them in such an intimate venue on Shetland.

Here's the Mareel theater, where most of the concerts and sessions were held. A fairly new building that's perfect for hosting over a hundred fiddlers and all their entourage!

Mareel, by the way, is "sea fire," the strange light effect caused by microscopic sea life that phosphoresces when it's disturbed by oars and ships. 

We don't have much in the way of photos from The Frenzy (how does one take a picture of music, right?), so it will have to suffice to say that it was a phenomenal experience. So many excellent musicians, outstanding tutors, and great opportunities to learn and be engrossed in Shetland music. We were exhausted each day since we started early, worked hard, and stayed up late. It was worth it, for sure! 

Each night we were treated to a concert showcasing talent from Shetland, which was an inspirational way to cap each day of study. The following is a video of Mairearad Green and Anna Massie on bagpipe and banjo, which was one of our favorite concerts of the week.

By mid-week we were all feeling a bit cooked, so we took one of the afternoon tours to St. Ninian's Island. 

To get to the island itself one walks across the tombolo - the double beach you can see in the picture above, viewed over the ruins of the church.

On several days the entire Frenzy was bussed to a different place on Shetland, and we got to take our classes and concerts in a different venue. And on Friday night we were treated to ceilidh dancing at the Cullivoe Hall on the isle of Yell! Here's Tim, Tina, and Melinda whirling about the dance floor for The Dashing White Sargent, a wonderful traditional dance.

On Saturday, after most of The Frenzy activities were done, we took a tour to Eshaness (pronounced like "aishness"), in the northwest of Shetland. Eshaness is the home of Tom Anderson, who essentially saved Shetland music from disappearing in the 20th century. Tom (or Tammy, in the local dialect) died in 1991, and is still revered by all on Shetland. It's because of him that things like The Fiddle Frenzy happen, and musicians all around the world own Tammy a debt of gratitude.

This panorama picture shows the house were Tammy Anderson was born, overlooking Hamnavoe. It's a beautiful and remote place, and one can only imagine life here a century ago. With almost no motor vehicles, a trip from Eshaness to Lerwick would take a full day, and was about the same as visiting a far away place like London.

It's a Fiddle Frenzy tradition to play a tune at Tammy Anderson's grave site. We played Da Slockit Licht, a beautiful slow aire that Tammy was inspired to write the day he noticed that many of the lights of his beloved Eshaness were going out as people moved away. It's a touching tune, and it was quite moving to have dozens of fiddlers playing it for dear Tammy.

We also visited the light house at Eshaness, and saw more of the extreme shoreline of Shetland. If you look closely at the picture you can see some of our fellow Frenziers standing at the top of the cliffs!

We finished our time on Shetland by going back to Bressay and walking to a standing stone. There's no history written for this monolith, but, again with some imagination, one can see thousands of years into the past ...

The weather this day was the nicest we've seen since beginning our adventure back in July. It was also windy, as it always is here, but to have a full day of sunshine and t-shirt temperatures was a treat!

And soon, friends, we're leaving Shetland. We're sad to leave because this has been such a great experience. The music we've heard, the music we've learned, the fun times we've had with Tim and Tina, having a flat with a roof and a kitchen ... it's all been so much fun. We hate to see this chapter close, but we're excited to head to Ornkey and see what adventures await!