Walking on a small island
May. 16th, 2010 10:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustI knew before I went there that Fair Isle is a small island; but I hadn't grasped how small. In its own way, after all, it's famous: the name is familiar, whether from the knitwear or the shipping forecast. Yet it's tiny: three and a half miles by two miles, the property of a single landowner (the National Trust for Scotland). Dave, our host at the South Light sent us off with the encouraging information that we could walk wherever we liked on the island, so long as we took care near the cliff edges, some of which are not stable. "Anyway, you can't get lost..."
That first day, we stayed pretty much inland, though we were rarely out of sight of the sea. We followed the road up to the shop, where we bought postcards, then followed the waymarked route to the ruined croft of Pund, over turf dotted with violets, and past it to the burnt mound, where we paused for a rest in the sun, scrutinised by inquisitive sheep from a safe distance:
Not much further on we reached the double dyke - the ancient Feelie dyke, ridge in the ground which was once a turf rampart running across the width of the island, doubled for much of its length by a dry stone wall, the Hill Dyke. This divides the little island into two even smaller areas: south of the wall is cultivated land, crops and rich grazing; north of the wall is moorland, grazed by the smaller, hardier sheep and patrolled by bonxies.
We crossed the wall, and climbed the hill, across the airstrip, where the fire engine* provided a bold flash of red on the brown moorland. (Later, we commented to someone that this seemed a rational place to keep the fire engine, and were told "Well, sometimes they have to drive it round a few times when the plane's due in, to drive the sheep off the runway.") and up again, past the microwave tower and over the shoulder of Ward Hill (the name given to the highest hill on many of the Northern Isles).
Now the north of the island was spread out in front of us, so we spread our blanket on the heather and sat in the sun to eat our picnic. The white painted North Light gleamed below us, a pair of arctic skuas wheeled above us, and we agreed that really you couldn't ask for more. Then down to the track which looped away from the lighthouse and took us eventually back to the road and home, weary and sunburned and very pleased with ourselves.
*That's a National Trust fire engine, of course.
That first day, we stayed pretty much inland, though we were rarely out of sight of the sea. We followed the road up to the shop, where we bought postcards, then followed the waymarked route to the ruined croft of Pund, over turf dotted with violets, and past it to the burnt mound, where we paused for a rest in the sun, scrutinised by inquisitive sheep from a safe distance:
Not much further on we reached the double dyke - the ancient Feelie dyke, ridge in the ground which was once a turf rampart running across the width of the island, doubled for much of its length by a dry stone wall, the Hill Dyke. This divides the little island into two even smaller areas: south of the wall is cultivated land, crops and rich grazing; north of the wall is moorland, grazed by the smaller, hardier sheep and patrolled by bonxies.
We crossed the wall, and climbed the hill, across the airstrip, where the fire engine* provided a bold flash of red on the brown moorland. (Later, we commented to someone that this seemed a rational place to keep the fire engine, and were told "Well, sometimes they have to drive it round a few times when the plane's due in, to drive the sheep off the runway.") and up again, past the microwave tower and over the shoulder of Ward Hill (the name given to the highest hill on many of the Northern Isles).
Now the north of the island was spread out in front of us, so we spread our blanket on the heather and sat in the sun to eat our picnic. The white painted North Light gleamed below us, a pair of arctic skuas wheeled above us, and we agreed that really you couldn't ask for more. Then down to the track which looped away from the lighthouse and took us eventually back to the road and home, weary and sunburned and very pleased with ourselves.
*That's a National Trust fire engine, of course.
