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Fieldnotes
| 10/09/2021 – Overnight ferry from Orkney to Shetland. Early morning, off the boat and on to the number 9 bus that goes to Walls. It’s a lovely bus route and if you don’t have a car, you could use it to visit the big sites like Scord of Brouster and with a bit of a walk, Stanydale Temple. Worth doing just for the scenery. Today we were heading for Weisdale Hill. We had a bit of history with this one. Back in 2014 we were on the way here and had to turn back due to car problems. I’ve been wanting to get back and give it another go. Bus driver was proper friendly, asked where we were going. Dropped us off at Scord of Sound, the high part of the road just next to the track going up the hill. The feet were very grateful as it saved us 100m gain and we had full loads today with the rucksacks. Day 8 of the trip, we were tired. I’m starting to feel old for this backpacking game. Slow plod up the track to the aerials on Hill of Sound then a pathless walk of about 1.2km to the top of Weisdale Hill. Nothing too bad underfoot. Pretty easy going. Weather wasn’t great today. Low cloud base so visibility wasn’t great but at least the rain was holding off. Canmore has this cairn as a ‘a rubble pile covered in peat, which could be a prehistoric summit cairn’. Doesn’t make it sound that exciting. It’s a good size maybe 8-10m in diameter and over 2m high. There’s a small modern cairn on top. To my eyes it looked prehistory. It’s definitely built, not natural. The south side is covered in peat to a height over 2m. I’ve read the rate of peat accumulation is roughly 1mm per year, though could be slower this far north in Shetland. A depth of 2m would have taken 2,000 years or more. It’s an old cairn. Bit of a shame it was cloudy today as the view from here would be very nice. We didn’t stay too long, as it wasn’t a day for sitting. We headed back and into Tresta to wait for the bus back. A nice day out. |
Posted by thelonious17th September 2021ce Edited 17th September 2021ce
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