Unst

Our next trick was to get from Falkirk to Unst. We drove north to Aberdeen, stopping at Stonehaven beach on the way, took the overnight ferry to Shetland, then drove and took two more inter-island ferries to reach the most northerly place in the UK. 

Stonehaven is a cute little town south of Aberdeen, home of an open air swimming pool. It's also part of string of beaches along this coast who vied for the title of "Sunniest Beach in Scotland". It wasn't actually sunny - or warm - when we were there, but still a lovely, windswept, chilly beach. 

When I say "ferry" - you might think of a passenger ferry, or a larger ro-ro (roll on, roll off) car ferry. The Northlink ferry has room for 600 passengers and maybe 100 cars or trucks. There are two ferries that trade off going north and south. We were on the Hjatland for this trip. 

This was our first time driving into the ferry with a car. It was kind of terrifying to drive into this huge maw, then drive down a narrow ramp to a lower deck to wedge our precious rental car in with maybe 15 other cars for the crossing. All of the trucks stayed on the upper deck. 

Then we climbed three flights of stairs to get to the passenger deck, and down the hall to find our cabins. 

These beds might look narrow and simple, but it was incredibly cozy to curl up in our duvets and sleep through most of the (somewhat rough) crossing. 

There's a restaurant on board, and I always order the jacket potato, a large hot plain baked potato. I get seasick, so I have to be gentle on my stomach. But they ferry doesn't care if you bring food on board, so we elevated the simple potato into a lovely meal with our own mature cheddar cheese, local butter, new greens, and salad dressing. 

Here's a view out the back of the ferry, still in the Aberdeen harbor, at sunset. 

And here I am as we leave the harbor. Unfortunately, the only outside deck that was open was the back dog/smoking deck, so we only get view behind. 

On arrival at 7:30 am the next morning, I drove off the boat and left mom to walk off as a passenger to avoid those three flights of stairs! 

After a stop at Tesco and the bank, we headed across the "mainland" of Shetland to our first inter-island ferry. 

I had cell service so we could see how close we were getting to the other side, but it also looks like we're flying across the water!

On the second ferry, we got stuck behind a huge truck. Fortunately, all of the vehicles stayed put. 

And finally - we made it to Unst

And checked into our new airbnb. It looks small, but it's like the Tardis - much larger on the inside than you'd think. Three bedrooms, one fully accessible, plus the little porch that got really warm when it was sunny.