Gale warning Issued
Eshaness
The general synopsis at midday Fair Isle Gale force 8 backing easterly imminent, rough at first. Fair. Good.
It is impossible to sleep. It is as if The Beetles have appeared on stage and a packed venue has gone wild with its screaming. The thick-walled stone house shudders, the roof creaks, rain smashes with the force of a police jet hose against the window. It is very dark. The night, wild and thrilling, the sort of thing you hope to experience on this archipelago 100 miles off the Scottish mainland. For the islands, it is just another night of pelting squalls.
For over 600 million years, in a journey that it has taken them from the Antartic to 400 miles short of the Arctic circle, violence has been the norm. If rocks could speak, they’d talk of un-imaginalble storms, extreme heat and cold and volcanic eruptions. Tonight then, is a pretty run-of-the-mill sort of night for these islands.
Over breakfast Pierre Dupont, the owner of Burrastow House Hotel agrees that ‘it is a bit windy today’. He suggests that if we want meteorological drama today, we should head out to Eshaness which ‘will be taking the full force of the Atlantic today’.
The North Atlantic
Few places in the UK can rival Eshaness. Where else can you walk on a volcano whilst the wild fury of the Atlantic continues to sculpt some of the most dramatic cliff scenery in the world?
The sea is thrashing against one side of an old caldera. The old volcano is not Mount Fuji for sure. Time has reduced its size somewhat, but under our feet is the unmistakeable black lava and solidified volcanic ash. As the land that is now Shetland moved northwards, the Iapetus Oceon was closed and landmasses crashed into each other, causing an enormous mountain chain, higher than the Himalays today. The heat and pressure of the collisions caused magma to flow up and burst. The volcano grew, to form a steep and unstable cone, against which the sea is now crashing.
Calder Geo
There is no cone as such to walk up, so we walk along the edge of one part of the old caldera, which form the cliffs of Eshaness. We walk across the old lava field to Calder’s Geo, an inlet gouged out by the sea. It’s almost hundred metres long. As the rocks and ash cooled at different rates fault lines and weaknesses in the rock were created, which the sea is exploiting. We crawl to the edge to peer into the chasm of froth and foam, sixty metres below. The updraft is phenomenal. My hair is combed upright, head-sized foam hurtles over me. Waves surge into the geo, fighting and barging in some unruly rush. I watch, mesmerised as a white wave folds like whipped cream between the narrow cliffs. It climbs up the black rocks spitting and raging and a tidal wave of spray soaks us.
There are more thrills ahead as we walk a safe distance from the edge and watch, awed as wave after wave slams into stacks and cliffs, encasing each in white water. Wind does what it can to topple us. Our walk is more drunken and unsteady than it ought to be, for there has been no alcohol and the path across the close-cropped grass is smooth and easy.
The Holes o' Scraada
150 metres inland are The Hols o' Scraada, a 60 metre deep gash in the middle of a field, where the sea spumes and sprays. We hear resounding booms and bangs and the ground shakes beneath us as the Atlantic scours a sea cave beneath our feet. The ‘Hols’ is a section of the sea-cave which has collapsed, leaving the sea exposed to the sky in the middle of a field.
Grind o Da Navir
This makes us a tad uneasy, for with the current mood of the sea, a further collapse could happen at any time - or so our imaginations have us believe, so we stride northwards, following the coast to Grind o Da Navir. Here, the stormy seas have smashed a hole in the cliffs and and thrown thousands of tons of sharp and jagged ignimbrite rock onto a field.
Cliff erosion
We walk on into a grey murk of spray, rain and seamist, through which we see the vague outline of the Villains of Hamnavoe, a headland formed of lava and coarse ash and which seems to be taking the full brunt of the North Atlantic’s violence. The cliffs, for all their forged strength are crumbling. A huge jagged rent ten metres from the cliff face, is cut into the field.
The return crosses soggy moor and sheep-cropped fields. Anthracite grey waters of the inland lochs are ruffled. We pass a deserted croft house an Iron Age broch, (a circular tower) and the white walled lighthouse with its tapering square tower and keeper’s cottage built by David Stevenson, another of the famous ‘lighthouse’ Stevenson family. All these things would be worthy of greater attention, were it not for the tempestuous sea which continues to thrash and boom against the cliffs.
Seaweed eating sheep
Around a headland, sheep are grazing on a beach, quite oblivious to the drama around them. Like the North Ronaldsay sheep in the Orkney Islands, these Shetland sheep nibbling away at the long brown strands of kelp which litters the white sandy beach. Scientists claim that seaweed eating animals burp and fart up to 30 times less methane than grass grazing animals.
Two hours in this wind and spray has left us battered, if not bruised. Fortunately, it is but a short drive on a single track road to Burrastow House Hotel. Inside all is calm. A fire crackles in grate. A pot of tea is brought into the library, the cups clinking on the tray which also has a hearty pile of Shetland Bannocks upon it. Outside the wind whines around the thick walls. A boat tugs at its rope in the loch outside. The Met. Office forecast for tonight; Gale warning Issued: 09:47 (UTC) on Tue 8 Oct. Northeasterly gale force 8 imminent, backing northerly and increasing severe gale force 9 later Sea state Rough or very rough, occasionally high later.
Practicalities
START/FINISH: Eshaness Car Park DISTANCE: 5.7km (3.5 miles) TOTAL ASCENT: 108m (est) OS MAP: Landranger 3 TERRAIN AND SURFACES: A faint path leads along the clifftops. Be aware of both the wind and the crumbling cliffs. The lava field is rough and jagged. The route described does not include the southern loop towards Tanwick, which is best done on a calm day ACCOMODATION AND REFRESHMENTS: Burrastow House Hotel PUBLIC TRANSPORT: A very limited public transport network operates to Eshaness. The timetable can be viewed here. LINKS TO OTHER WALKS:
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