Today’s instalment of the Shetland Adventure took us over to the west coast of Shetland Mainland, and the island of Muckle Roe. Muckle Roe is attached to the mainland by a bridge, which is helpful for achieving a visit to the lighthouse there.

We parked at the “car park”, a little lay-by at the side of the road and set off. I was delighted to see a signpost saying “Lighthouse 2km”, mainly because I knew it was a flat-pack lighthouse and I’ve never seen a signpost specifically guiding you to a flat-pack before!

Those 2km were a beautiful walk. We went a little awry initially on the walk and ended up losing the path, but we quickly found it again. The path near enough followed the coast along, with plenty of lovely views, particularly the one in the picture below. I thought that one of the rocks jutting out into the sea here looked like an alligator.

There were lots of ups and downs and this way and that way as we went. At one point we came to a loch with a lovely little stream leading into the sea. It was a really interesting walk. After a while, when it looked like we still may have had miles and miles still to go, the lighthouse came into view, tucked down at the coast. It looked like we were nearly there until I got a bit closer and discovered that we still had to go a bit further inland to get out to the lighthouse. It wasn’t so far though and the old handrail posts reassuringly led us in the right direction.

The lighthouse is surrounded by an array of rocky outcrops and the cliffs in front of the tower are amazing. As my regular readers will know, I am rather partial to a flat-pack lighthouse and this was a standard one. As with so many of them though it is in part the location that makes them so worth visiting. Would I have wanted to miss out on seeing the great views I got on Muckle Roe this morning? No, I wouldn’t, and if it hadn’t have been for the lighthouse I would have been very unlikely to have gone there. This is what it’s really all about – well, that and the lighthouses too of course.

Knowing that a old lighthouse on Muckle Roe is now next to the car park at Sumburgh Head, I wish I had been able to see it in its original home. People talk a lot about the full-time lighthouse keepers – and very rightly so – but what a wonderful job the person responsible for looking after the old lighthouse here would have had. Take a flask of tea along and sit outside the tower, which was built as an automatic station, on a nice day (I have a wonderful imagination, can you tell?) and enjoy the beauty of it all. A wonderful thought.

With the jagged coastline and land around it there are plenty of angles to see the lighthouse from. There was also an interesting little stone hut – or the remains of one – not far from the lighthouse. Not sure what that would have been for, but again a fantastic place to have a hut. Eventually it was time to head off and the walk back was straight forward with no wrong turns taken. The rain started just as we arrived back at the car so our visit was perfectly timed.

This afternoon we finally made it to the Shetland Museum & Archives, which we’d unsuccessfully attempted to visit in November. I knew that it contained the old light mechanism from Bressay lighthouse, which is exactly where I went as soon as I arrived. It is a catoptric mechanism, using mirrors to reflect light rather than glass, which was installed in the Bressay tower in 1940. When the light was automated in 1989 the mechanism was removed and, of course, it is now on display for all to see, which is wonderful. What is most wonderful though is that they have set it up so you can press a big yellow button and it turns as it would have done in the lighthouse.

It was great to see this sort of light mechanism in action and because of the mirrors you also get to see yourself upside down as it spins! It’s fantastic what they have done with it. A real centrepiece to the Museum – or at least that’s what I think anyway. 🙂