43 foot high, walls at ground level 16 ft thick, then 2 concentric walls going up with a staircase between them. We walked to it, climbed up the perilously thin worn stone spiral stairs, looked at the view and came down again . Brochs are thought by some to be forts for defence, or symbols of a wealthy persons power. No one knows.
From the broch we wandered along the path around part of the island. We saw lots of different birds and a very large bull grey seal sitting on a rock haughtily surveying the frolicking seals around him. We had our picnic lunch sitting on a rock looking out to sea watching the birds swoop, skim across the water, take food into caves, presumably to their young , etc.
After the return ferry trip , we stopped at a village Cunningsburgh where there was an agricultural show . I think every man and his dog, except there do not appear to be many dogs, every many and woman and kid in the shetlands were there. Extra surprising because it is not the weekend. We walked straight to the sheep pens where we were very amazed to see sheep of all shades of orange. See previous post!
Huge sheep. Even my friend the ex sheepfarmer thought they were huge. We finally found the sign - Suffolk sheep. There were assorted other breeds including shetland sheep which were all small. We looked at some fleeces in a tent. My friend said very little other than a few grunts of annoyance that he was no longer in the industry. I thought that a Shetland pony was a Shetland pony but there are many different types.
All the knitted garments on display were very traditional. I was hoping to see some
modern garments using the tradition patterns and colours. This made me realise that
Back in lerwick it was coffee and cake at a new place that serves good coffee. We visited the textile museum which we were hoping would have more historical stuff about wool processing in the days of the small crofters. But it didnot. There were some fine garments on display
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