Replenished by a huge sleep and some good food courtesy of our newly found friends, we left Voe in chilly conditions (but the sun was out!) following a scenic loch road where climbing was made difficult into the strong headwinds.
We covered the 25 kms in good time to our short 20 minute ferry trip to the island of Yell. Shetland has an array of quaint named towns with Norse origin names e.b. Tingwall - place or Parliament, Aith - site of Isthmus and the rather unfortunately named village of Twatt just proving that the Vikings did indeed have a sense of humour !
The well spaced Shetland bus shelters came in handy on Yell as we took shelter and some lunch to escape the icy conditions. Monika had improved on her first days effort but with not much recent cycling under her belt was finding the long gradual climbs hard work
We arrived in Gutcher just in time for our next ferry to the Island of Unst the furthest northerly inhabited island in the UK with a latitude that matches Norway and boy did it feel like it with wind chill seemingly dropping temperatures by another 5 degrees !
Despite the conditions there was still time to take in the beautifully stark scenery that marks Shetland as one of the most isolated areas in the world. Even car traffic was minimal although the roads provided hazards of another sort with skittish sheep likely to bring down an unwary cyclist !
After nearly 7 hours on the go we reached Baltasound and our accommodation after first embarrassingly ringing our host to tell her we were lost only to find out that we were standing directly outside her property !
We had just enough time to unpack before doing a 3km sprint to the towns about to close only shop arriving breathless with only minutes to spare !
On our way back, having been worded up, we took dinner at the local community hall, venue for a once a week fish and chips night complete with bar that attracts most of the towns locals to gather and discuss the weeks events - we were ravenous after the days effort and the food and ambience was fantastic !
Back to our beautifully located self contained accommodation we were delighted to find out that Rona the 12 year old daughter of the owner had baked us a cake leaving us a delightful welcome message - what a great feeling adding to the hugely welcoming spirit that we have found from the Shetland Islanders we've met so far.
So well fed and sitting back in our well heated accommodation with only a short ride tomorrow we could only think about the Shetlanders saying for their weather " this is as good as it gets" !
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