shetland

ramisis

thinking about touring shetland may/june is it worth the effort

daviddd

Having lived in N Scotland / Orkney for 25 yrs I can say that Shetland is cool and damp,; I was there in Jan and it was like Siberia. It can be nearly as bad in the 'summer' but if you can stand this I think you will like it.
Orkney is awesome - have you been? Some famous World Heritage archaeology and much greener and more pleasant in my opinion.
Check on the SCU website forum for more detailed info on either place - there are quite a few keen cyclists out there.

andrew_s

It depends what you want out of the place.
I went last June, mostly with a view to wildlife, which was good.
Access was surprisingly cheap - £103 for the return journey from Gloucester (train to Aberdeen, then ferry). Inter-island ferries are either cheap (£3.50 return) or free
I believe that may/june is best from a sun point of view, but it's not particularly warm - 10 to 12C, and is frequently fairly windy. I got wet one day, and had 4 good sunny days out of 2 weeks. The other days were dull & cloudy with some bright intervals.
It's not particularly developed from a tourism point of view. Pubs/places to eat out in are few, and may/june seems to be before what passes for the tourist season, so you may find some stuff isn't running/open.
The roads are mostly good, but do a fair bit of undulating between sea level and 80-100m. The wind can make the undulations seem like fairly hard going. There's a reasonable amount of traffic between Lerwick and Sumburgh, and between Lerwick and Brae/Sullom Voe, but very little elsewhere.

noggincp

Orkney over Shitland any day

bicyclist

its well worth the trip.i went shetland last september,its easy to cover most places in a week the coastal scenery is brill.lerwick has a very interesting museum.after shetland i went to orkney and was dissapointed although i found the churchill barriers interesting and the italian church.had the best fish and chips ever in kirkwall.
go to shetland its good

shazzz

It can be VERY windy. We struggled to open the car doors sometimes.

ixion

Hey

Had my worst few days cycling in Shetland a couple of summers ago. Went Orkney-Shetland-Norway and Shetland was not great. I was unlucky with weather - mist, drizzle-rain-drizzle. Very poor visibility especially in the hills, and quite scary as lots of trucks going to the refineries and not expecting me. wet sheep. wet ponies. wet peat. wet. going to the same small shops and looking at the same range of meat pies in each one. really wet.

figured afterwards that you can get the same experience by going to a garden centre, getting a sack of peat, standing in it, turn a hose on yourself, and have a friend throw empty Tennants cans at you, then give you a cold meat pie.

Having said that, when the sun came out over Eshaness, and I found a campsite with hot water and chocolate cake, it was sublime!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8963476@N0 ... 714920963/

Ixion

niblue

I'd done some planning for a Shetland tour and it looked like quite a few of the youth hostels were in good locations to support a cycling tour.