Returned from Shetland this morning at 7:00am and went to class straightaway and what an adventure it was!
It all started with a ferry ride from Aberdeen Harbour at 7pm.
A freaking long 12 hour journey to Shetland it was.
The boat was rocky and it took some nice fudge to keep the motion from getting to me.
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| Northlink ferry that took us to Shetland. |
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| There was a restaurant, a bar, a shop, cinema, cabins on board the ferry. |
In the morning we woke up to see Shetland approaching us and soon got off the boat to reach Lerwick, the capital of Shetland. We wandered around for a bit to find some makan as it was too darn early (7am!) and no shop was open yet. Finally we found a nice cafe called Harbour cafe to have a nice breakfast!
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| Dawn came and we woke to see Shetland! At last! |
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| Like a small toy but its actually a normal size boat |
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| Its a beautiful day in the town of Lerwick! |
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| A hearty breakfast before our journey at the Harbour Cafe! |
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| Opens the earliest and save good breakfast at a good deal! |
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| First time driving in a while! Edwin needs to 'warm up' he says. |
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| First time driving also in a while but I'm calm and cool as always. |
We rented a car that turn out to cost 100 pound (wow!) for two days....after we added in petrol money.
Well I am kind of glad the car came back in one piece given how we were driving it haha. Edwin and I (mainly me) didn't treat it very kindly haha as we were so out of practice. Incidents like stepping on the gas pedal too hard when starting, hitting a wooden pole while reversing, driving with handbrake on, stalling on a roundabout during peak hour...etc.
Shetland was a good place to practice our driving a bit as the roads didn't had too many people. Mind you when there were people they mostly just zoom past us! (I was travelling at 50 miles per hour only which I feel was quite fast already!)
Other firsts was driving into a ferry which brought you to another island to continue the journey and defrosting the car in the morning. We definitely gain a lot of valuable experience driving on our own. Just don't tell our moms! haha!!!
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| Had to defrost the car in the morning! |
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| Reaching the next town! |
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| Shetland ponies were plenty! |
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| We saw many lochs and islands like these as we drove around! |
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| The ferry to bring our car across to the next island! |
Alas, most of the place that we went to were closed as it was winter and most people were slacking/sleeping/holidaying which is just as well as it seems me and Edwin are the only 2 tourist on the island LOL!
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| Foords Chocolate - CLOSED! |
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| Give me some Valhalla Beer which the bottled version you can find only on Shetland - CLOSED! |
During the summer, another thing that you can find on Shetland is many wildlife abound. Especially birds, like puffins can be found! You can kayak or hike around to see them! In winter you will just see the ponies, countless sheeps that leave droppings or what Edwin call 'mines' everywhere and also seagulls hanging around the cliffs.
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| An example of a puffin! (which i certainly didn't see) |
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| All I saw were some seagulls! |
The reason why we wanted to go to Shetland was because there were huge fire festivals around Shetland around these periods of time. Called Up Helly Aa, they are the biggest fire festivals in Europe! Especially the biggest one in Lerwick with like thousands of torch barrels as they march in their viking armour and burn their galley (viking longboat) at the end of it before the party of all parties begins and lasts till dawn.
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| See why I wanted to go! |
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| Biggest Fire Festival in Europe! |
The one that we wanted to go to was much smaller and at most a hundred people and it is at Norwick which is as far north as you can go in Shetland.
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| The most northern of places, Norwick. |
However due to some misleading information from the internet, we were ONE WEEK EARLY!
I really felt like crying at the moment! Luckily something happened to save the day!
We met with the people of Norwick and they were really welcoming and really sorry that we came too early. I guess most people don't come to visit them and they were surprise to find that we travelled all the way to see them.
They gave (YES GAVE) us a set of their old costume from a previous Up Helly Aa and let us pose for pictures with the galley. They also lit up a torch for us as well!
We were so grateful for their hospitality or maybe it was the beer and whisky that they plied us with haha.
Well it has been an adventure! Far vel! Hjaltland!
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