In retrospect, we might have done better to either get an early start or swap round Saturday's or Monday's activities with Sunday. There are slightly fewer ferries running on a Sunday, and more significantly the Fetlar afternoon ferry leaves at 3.30 rather than 4pm. However, this did at least ensure we had a small amount of daylight to have a look at Fetlar before the twilight darkened into pitch black. The weather was the nicest so far, not bad at all for February this far north, and we had an enjoyable journey over across the mainland to Yell, then drove through Yell to the Unst ferry departure point at Gutcher, where this unique Wind Dog Cafe is sited. A versatile place, it serves as a cafe, restaurant in the evenings, children's play area, library, internet cafe, souvenir/postcard shop and information source. We caught a ferry to Unst, drove to the north of the island (noticing that the road works which had been there in October still didn't seem to have made any progress, but OK, winter up there probably isn't very nice to work outside on road mending activities). From Hermaness, we walked to the most northerly point of the UK, beyond which is the small island of Muckle Flugga, the last building in the UK, a now automatic lighthouse. Beyond that is a lump of rock, called the Out Stack, then nothing but sea straight up to the Arctic.
Unfortunately we had to do all this in something of a hurry, as it's a reasonably tough walk which takes longer than you imagine. We had a brief moment to take in the views of Muckle Flugga, then it was time to hurry back and drive speedily to the Belmont ferry point, to catch our ferry to Fetlar. Once there, we had time to relax as the ferry back wasn't till 7.35 pm. This was another point of the holiday I'd really been looking forward to. There's something special about Fetlar. Truly the "back of beyond", it's a world removed from life at home in Newcastle. We climbed up a hill and photographed the spectacular colours as the sky darkened and a full moon shone brightly, then it was dark and time to make our way slowly to the warm waiting room at the ferry departure point.
