The Front Door

The soldier's torch actually works !

The Castle has a lot of neat features all around.

There is an old fountain covered by brush and an old small water fall that was covered...yet to be restored...lots of foot paths or hiking trails as we would say. There is an old boat house and an old stable ...next to be restored...two or three lakes...not sure...

The Balcony Room

Each room has a name...
I forgot the real name of this one...but it had a cool balcony.

The Stairs

These stairs go to the tower room...you have the bath on one floor the bed on the next and then you have a tower with a view on all four sides!

The Old Stoves and Ovens

The Kitchen

This is the largest table I have ever seen !

The billard Room

This Table is hugh ! Much bigger than our standard tables...

this is for Dawn who wanted to see the inside of the castle ....well good luck...I tryed to take some pictures...this is for you!

Sam and Georgia

Aerial Photos

The smaller one is where Sam and Georgia live.

Landing and Orchardleigh Estate

After we landed we had about a 40 minute drive to Orchardleigh...its is wonderful here !
We have enjoyed our first two nights here...we have run the whole driveway which is 3 miles one way and walked around the lake ....seen the runway Chris and Mandy have made...just waiting on the grass to thicken up before they can use it.

Been back to the airport and took a flight back to orchardleigh and took aerial photos. Met the locals at the local pub with Sam and Georgia...Chris's daughter and granddaughter. They also had an air show at the airport which we got to see.

Scotland...first sitings

Coming into London we passed through Scotland...

Leaving Shetlands

And Off we go....onwards to London(Frome) the actual town we are staying in...like Atlanta is to Lawrenceville.

and more sheep...more views...

and Views...and Views...

The sheep of Herrmaness

Hermaness was a nature reserve where we hiked to the Light House. They still have many, many sheep there too..everywhere you look you see sheep or Shetland Ponies and beautiful views !
click on the sheep and you will see

on the rock behind them...THE BIRDS !

Muckle Flugga Light House

This was a beautiful hike around to the Light house ...this is a great place where bird watchers go to see many different kinds of birds...we ran into quite a few what they call Boxies...another dive bomer bird ...

Back to Unst

These walls are everywhere in the Shetlands...this one was the highest we saw and had a built in ladder to get over it ....three steps up and three down on the other side and you were in this massive sheep pin or whatever they used it for.

Cutting the Peat

In all the Shetland Islands they have no trees...so they cut Peat for fuel...its sorta looks like dirt and coal mixed together...they cut it with a special shovel in strips like fire wood and leave it out to dry.

This is a picture of the peat drying on a hill. Then they come back after its dryed and bag it up for the winter.

Yell

After Fetler we had to take a Ferry to Yell to get back to Unst where our beds and stuff were...

Well...we kept looking and looking around the town and Mell and I decided to walk back towards the Ferry and we went the wrong way...Mandy and Chris were to pick us up in time to catch the last Ferry...well you guessed it ...we ended up missing it...and were stuck in Yell for the night. Chris and Mandy had stayed in Yell at a B&B before so we looked up Isabell and she had two rooms for the night...so we had two rooms for the night one in Unst and one in Yell!

This house in Yell was built by a fellow for his wife and she died in childbirth and the house was never lived in and still to this day no one has ever lived in it.

Fetler International

Fetler has its own airstrip !

Its 1600 feet

The Monastery

We met Mother Mary Agnes here in Fetler
This is her garden...garden art at its finest.

She was gracious enough to show us around the place. She has a small chapel where they have church services.

The Old Restored House

This house was restored to its original plan.

Fetler Island

We took the Ferry over to Fetler Island....this is the interpretive center.

Here we met a guy who bought his place there off the internet. He was very informative about the history of the Island.

High upon the hills

These flowers are called cotton plants.

Nigel and Paul

Everyone was extremly nice and very helpful here...

Shetland Pony

This is where the Shetland Ponies come from !

They are all over the Islands too !

Muckle Flugga Light House

Mandy and Chris met a guy Alan and he took us all over the Island ( our private tour guide)

He was born here.

The Ruins

There are hundreds of these ruins about the Shetland Islands.

They even had a archeology dig going on ...for the Vikings used to live here.

Our first walk

We went to the beach and there was this

big rock with beautiful grass on it. I walked out on the rock and was bombed by artic terns a bird who evidently had eggs in the rocks !I hit the ground and made Mell go out and he ran them off...for a while that is....then attacked from the back they hit him in the forhead and actually drew blood....I never did get my picture of the rocks ! Click on the picture and you can see them above Mell's head...just before they attacked ! You can click and see me too !

First sitings of Shetland Islands

We had to clear Customs in

Sumburgh: but this is Fetler Island.

Leaving Faroe Island

These are the same rocks posted the other day but from the other side as we were leaving the Islands.

The Low Road

This is where Chris and Mandy were !

The steepest Part

This is the steep part of the high road where we met Susanne.

Susanne

We met Susanne on the high road...she was coming down the steepest part...

I was concerned about her ...but she was ok...later as we walked with her

we found out she was german and was traveling by herself and she was in the last year of her seventies ! Her daughter thinks she is crazy but she walks and does not drive....she walked 6 miles to this place then we met her on the hillside ! Later we had desert with her at the cafe. She wanted us to send her the pictures we took of her as she had none of herself.

We really enjoyed her and she us !