The great Shetland bucket list: Part IV

By Toby SkinnerJune 8th 2021

For locals and visitors, Shetland offers as much adventure and opportunity as it’s possible to find anywhere in the UK. In the fourth part of our Shetland bucket list, we reveal ten more great things to do on the islands

31. Find the red rock pool at Virkie

Known simply as the Red Rock Pool, this pool in Virkie is said to turn its distinctive bright red during the summer months because of sea algae decomposing. Like many of Shetland’s spectacular sights, it’s not signposted, and takes a bit of finding. From the Ness Boating Club, just north of Sumburgh Airport, follow the coast north for around half an hour, taking care to avoid Arctic Tern nesting sites in the summer. Near the Millburn Geo, where there are a series of abandoned stone mill houses on the hill, the red rock pool sits just by an arch in the black volcanic rock. Just beware the sulphurous smell – the price of a great Instagram shot.

32. Sleep like a Georgian in Unst

For an elegant escape in Britain’s northernmost island, it’s hard to beat Belmont House, a grand pile with landscaped gardens overlooking the little Belmont ferry terminal. Built in 1775, its renovation was completed in 2011 by a trust set up to restore it. The handsome house now sleeps up to 12 people, who can cosy up in the light-dappled drawing room, watching the ferry drift in – and feeling wholly at peace.

33. Buy a true Fair Isle sweater

Most Shetlanders grew up wearing hand-knitted Fair Isle sweaters, or ganseys in the local dialect. But the multicoloured patterned knitwear has become fashionable again, with more and more designers taking on a technique that was made popular by the Prince of Wales in 1921, but may date as far back as the Vikings. These include the bright contemporary designs of Joanna Hunter, of Ninian in Lerwick, but the best place to get the measure of Fair Isle knitting is still in the beautiful island itself, 32 miles south of the Shetland Mainland. These run the gamut from the more traditional designs of Elizabeth Riddiford, of Exclusively Fair Isle, to the catwalk-friendly collections of Mati Ventrillon, a Venezuelan former architect whose hooded jumpers draw on 1850s fishing caps for inspiration.

34. Eat and give at a Sunday tea

So much of Shetland community life is summed up by the tradition of Sunday teas. Taking place in community halls across the islands (The Shetland Times usually lists where), they involve locals baking and cooking up a storm, with the proceeds going to good causes, usually local. Shetland has a strong baking game: Northmavine local James Morton was a finalist on the third season of The Great British Bake Off, and visitors to Shetland homes are often offered ‘tea and fancies’ on arrival at peoples’ homes. Expect good cakes, in other words.

35. Camp really wild

Shetland is a wonderful place to wild camp, with hundreds of empty beaches and beauty spots to choose from. Just be sure to adhere to the Scottish Outdoor Access Code, to avoid planted fields and nesting sites, and to ask the landowner for permission to camp. Usually, asking at the nearest house or the village shop will do the trick – and, if your chosen site isn’t quite right, a local will usually point you somewhere more suitable.

36. See the sunset from Minn Beach

Few places can rival Shetland when it comes to spectacular tombolos – sandbars linking little islands to the mainland. Minn Beach, on the southern edge of West Burra on the Mainland, isn’t quite as famous as St Ninian’s, but it’s one of the best places to see the sunset – with the sun going down right between the entrance to the curving bay. With its clear waters over white sand, this is a great place for a swim on the right day. Kettla Ness, the headland to the south, is worth exploring too – a wild place of thriving seal colonies and nesting Arctic terns.

37. Tour The Westing, Unst

Jon Pulley, the tour guide behind Adventure Shetland, describes The Westing on Unst as ‘the best of Shetland in miniature’. Reached via a beautiful single-track road, this area of cliffs, stacks and bays is home to history as well as natural beauty: from the 12th-century St Olaf’s Chapel, overlooking the curved sandy bay at Lund, to ruined Viking longhouses and a midden at Collaster dating back to around 300BC. The scenery is spectacular too, from the dramatic cliffs and stacks of Bluemull to a ‘secret’ beach accessed by a rope climb over the bank by the single-track road.

38. Put a piece of Shetland in your home

For the seas, the skies and the sense of possibility, Shetland has always been a place that has nurtured the best artists and makers. Whether you’re a local or a visitor, it’s easy to take some of that creativity and sense of place home. Spaces like the Central Mainland’s Bonhoga Gallery and the Shetland Gallery, on Yell, sell art from the likes of creative woodworker Cecil Tait to young ceramicist Ellie Duncan and painter Ruth Brownlee, known for her paintings of wild Shetland seas and skies. The Shetland Gallery, whose co-owner Shona Skinner uses free machine embroidery to create exquisitely detailed landscapes and seascapes, has sent Shetland art as far afield as Oregon and New Zealand.

39. Discover the Tingon waterfall

There are many Shetlanders who’ve never made it to the Tingon waterfall in Northmavine, in Shetland’s North Mainland. But from the Tingon Road past Eshaness, the tinkling Tingon Burn leads through large black boulders to a ten-metre drop, where it’s possible to sit right by the water as it cascades into the sea – with the setting sun sometimes visible through the cleft in the cliffs. The four-hour walk around the peninsula is also classic Shetland, with fulmars, seals and rare whimblers around the cliffs and geos dotted with ruined stone croft houses.

40. See a whale from Skerries

While much of Shetland doesn’t feel as remote as people expect, Skerries does. The little archipelago, west of Whalsay, is home to 35 people and two shops – with the cultural highlight on the islands the annual summer eela, a traditional fishing competition followed by a fish supper and social. But this is one of the best parts of Shetland to see wildlife – from a migrant bird population that rivals Fetlar and Fair Isle to some of the most regular sightings of orca, harbour porpoise and minke whale.