Chapter 4 — Huffin’ and Puffin

Andrew Jack
Jun 25, 2024
1 min read

In a desperate attempt to keep the punny titles going — and to keep them relevant to the post content — I’m now obliged to ask myself, “what were we huffin’ when we thought it was a good idea to go on a camping road trip that involved a 14 hour ferry ride in a rough North Sea, to a small set of islands where we spend a lot of our days dashing madly from the van to the camping facilities in horizontal rain and bone chilling wind (in the middle of summer, for goodness sake)?”

There was that one fun night when the wind was so bad that we were unable to put up the pop-top sleeping compartment in the camper van, meaning all 4 of us had to top and tail downstairs in the one (single-sized) bed…

But actually, apart from the weather, Shetland has been pretty awesome. The scenery, wildlife and archaeological history have been amazing, while the warmth of the people has more than made up for the cold temperatures. An ancestral pilgrimage of sorts for Fiona — a chance to visit the place where her maternal grandmother was born — we seem to have bumped into cousins everywhere we went, while our main family contact while here, Brenda, god bless her, provided a cosy retreat and fed us up on soup and bannocks, mince and tatties with mealie, and delicious desserts. And we did have one or two stunning, sunny days.

Next stop, Orkney.