Starting off, though, with some more photos of our croft house in Unst. I visited one other renovated croft house on the island, and it had almost exactly the same layout. This window at the top of the stairs gives you an idea of how thick the walls are. About two feet.
Our first stop of the day was the Keen of Hamar, just a few miles from our house. It is a very peculiar area, a sweep of serpentine rock the likes of which is not found in many places on earth. It looks blasted, but it is not: there are many varieties of wildflowers and grasses that grow there, and they are pretty hardy! And tiny and beautiful. The following photos are concentrating on the flora, but also the amazing geology of the serpentine rocks. They look nothing like anything else I’ve ever seen. And I just kept shooting them! Embiggen to see the color and details.
This was one of the main reasons I wanted to visit: to see a plant that occurs nowhere else but here, on this spot: Edmonston’s Chickweed. AKA Shetland mouse-ear, how cute is that!!
And there it is! We saw quite a few. Easy to miss unless you are looking, for sure.
Our next stop was Sandwick Beach, and the ruins of a Norse longhouse right on the sand. A jolly walk through fields and past a ruined manse took us there.
The site of this Viking longhouse is also called Canmore.
While you don’t always get the weather you want in Shetland, you get the weather you get, and it’s always beautiful. I was thrilled to have a misty, moody day to explore the serpentine fields and the ancient Norse longhouse. And then we got to go home to our lovely house and build a fire and have a meal. A perfect day.
24 June, 2022
Debkakes in the UK 2022 
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