Round about 6 Miles south of Gunnister is my next interesting locale, well it is if you are me 😁.

Next up is Mavis Grind. This is the narrowest point in Shetland. One one side is the Atlantic and the other is the North Sea. Why is it interesting, well, apart from the actual geography, the history of the place is pretty cool too.

As mentioned above, the Shetland Islands (never, never call it ‘The Shetland’s’ up here) sits with the North Sea to the East and North Atlantic to the West.

As Vikings colonised this part of the world they took advantage of this narrow strip of land… rather than sailing all they way around they would drag their boats across from one side to the other. The name is from the Norse and means something along the lines of: ‘Gate of the narrow isthmus’ . This method pretty much carried on for centuries especially in the winter months when coming round either end of the islands was asking for trouble.

In times gone by the ground level was a lot lower, the main road built it up. Supposedly at the narrowest part it is something like 33m (110 feet) from high water to high water.

in the late 90’s the BBC or someone similar did a test…

They did indeed pull a boat from the sea to the ocean. Not sure why they needed to try as in the archives there are lots of pictures and testimonies of people doing just that. http://photos.shetland-museum.org.uk/index.php?a=ViewItem&key=SXsiTiI6MTE2LCJQIjp7InZhbHVlIjoiTWF2aXMgR3JpbmQiLCJvcGVyYXRvciI6IjEiLCJmdXp6eVByZWZpeExlbmd0aCI6IjMiLCJmdXp6eU1pblNpbWlsYXJpdHkiOjAuNjUsIm1heFN1Z2dlc3Rpb25zIjoiNSIsImFsd2F5c1N1Z2dlc3QiOm51bGx9fQ&pg=54&WINID=1558564105627#ZIk6J2xfZQ8AAAFq4ajpUA/130428

Okay it isn’t as big as the one above but they did indeed do it up until relatively recently.

No models, painting or nothing tonight as I am sitting in a hotel room in Edinburgh eating salt and vinegar Pringles and drinking tea… what a rock and roll lifestyle I lead!

Back to Shetland on Friday morning…