St Ninian's Isle
The rocks off St. Ninian’s Isle
Overview
It is the strangest of experiences to be standing on a stretch of sand watching the ride roar in on both sides. Around the rocky island it comes, as if in some sort of ambush and rushes up across the bar. Pay attention for when the waves meet on the crest of the sand ridge, you really should not be there. Make haste back to the Mainland, or seek refuge in the old ruined chapel under whose cross is/was buried treasure. Shetland at its most sublime.
Practicalities
START/FINISH: Bigton DISTANCE: 6.7km (4 miles) TOTAL ASCENT: 108m (est) OS MAP: Landranger 4 TERRAIN AND SURFACES: a sand bar followed by an indistinct path around the Isle which may be slippery in bad weather ACCOMODATION AND REFRESHMENTS: The Spiggie Guest House MAINLINE TRAIN SERVICES: None LINKS TO OTHER WALKS:
Walk Notes
You’ll no doubt have seen the tombolo long before you step foot on it, as it appears poster sized on many of the Shetland Isles publicity material. Any potential thoughts of disappointment at seeing it in the ‘flesh’ as it were fail to arrive, for it is a spectacle, whatever the weather.
Any sense of normal coastal scenery is soon dispatched as you walk across this narrow bar of sand. The sea seeks to ambush you from both sides as it hurtles swishes up both sides of the bar. Misjudge your return and waves will soak you from both your right and left. But let us not be in that position. Low tide is the time to walk.
Head from Bigton down the track. Ahead is the tomobolo, or ayre, of golden sand linking the Mainland with St. Ninian’s Isle. At 500m, the tombolo is the largest in the UK. The walk is less a crossing of a geological perculiarity, rather it is a stroll over a piece of art. The ribs and striations of coloured sand with the occasional placement of a piece of wood or a feathers can be such a distraction that on our first attempt we failed to cross to the island.
The walk around the island is not difficult but as with all coastal walks on Shetland, made more challenging by the wind. The light constantly changes, from full blown spot light to a gentle diffusion of particles, the sea bursts and crashes and around a headland whispers. On the eastern side of the isle is St. Ninian’s chapel and seems just the sort of place that this early hard-man saint may have chosen to live; wild and windy, uncomfortable and dramatic. The saint is accredited with converting the Picts to Christianity in the 5th century. The chapel dates from around the 12th century but is most certainly built on an older foundation, probably as early as the 8th century. Under the cross, some Pictish silver was found. We imagine a scared family rapidly digging a hole in the soft peat and filling it up with their treasure as rumours of yet another Viking raid rattled around the nearby settlements. Perhaps the Viking swords brought them to their untimely end, leaving their treasures to be unearthed in 1958.
Walking the coves and cliffs around Shetland is like walking through a book of poetry. Here you walk past Scarfi Tang, Fauchin House, The Neapack, Longa Berg and Sweyn Holm. In summer flowers abound, and seabirds nest on the cliffs. Seals bobble about in the coves. When we were there in late September, the waves chose to break over the cliffs and sea spume covered the grass.
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