Northern Isles Day 10

I had to go out onto the tombolo to get a signal to blip last night. Now we are hooked up at Aithsvoe Marina (£20 a night) but again, no signal. My foot is playing up but I’ll hobble off in due course in an attempt to find a spot up the hill. The blipping addiction is strong!

Today we drove down the road via Spriggie Loch to Sumburgh Head (via crossing the runway of the airport). A couple of tour buses were there, one of which was full of Americans, presumably from a cruise ship.

We walked up by the fence to look at the birds. There were a few fulmars and puffins and lots of guillemots. It was fun to watch them for a while. I took a few photos - the wild flowers clinging to the cliff made a good backdrop for the puffins which were scurrying around their burrows. I waited to see if any returned with a mouthful of fish, but no luck.

Our next stop was Jarlshof and what a treat that was. Over a century ago, all you would have seen from here were a grassy mound
and a single ruin. But that changed in
the 1890s when fierce storms exposed
a cluster of early structures. These turned out to be one of Europe's most important archaeological sites, mainly excavated by government funding during the middle of last century.

For 4,000 years people lived here, from Iron Age till now. It is rare to see the progression of different types of dwellings through the ages. Usually some get destroyed when looking further down, but here that’s not the case. There were examples of bronze and Iron Age dwellings as well as a smithy and wheel house, moving on to a Broch from between 400BCE and 100 AD. The sea had claimed part of the structure. There are many of these around the north of Scotland the the islands. Further round we saw the excavation of a Norse longhouse. Norse people or 'Vikings' from western Norway began to settle at Jarlshof about AD 850. Lying close to the sea, the site gave easy access to their main travel and
trade routes. At Jarlshof, the Norse longhouses were built, rebuilt and added to by at least 12 generations. We saw the remains a medieval farmhouse from the 13th century. The last building was the laird’s house from 16th century from where I took the blip. It had fallen into ruin by the time Walter Scott visited in the 19th. We got an audio guide which was very useful and very well done.

Luckily we have radio contact to keep up to date with the Downing Street shenanigans. What a shambles.

Sorry for lack of comments but I’m running low on data allowance so saving it to make sure I can post a blip.