The Famous Unst Bus shelter.

One of the other highlights of any visit to Unst is to see the partly famous “Unst Bus Shelter”

Unst is a windy place and the Islands council provides an “on demand” bus service and limited scheduled service. This also doubles up as the school bus. One winter several years ago the bus shelter near Balta Sound was blown away in a gale, and not replaced until a small schoolboy named Bobby wrote to the council to ask for a replacement. The council obliged and Bobby was so happy that he and some of the other kids decorated the inside of the shelter as thanks and to show their appreciation. Not sure how long ago this was, but several years.

It has become progressively better known and features a Visitor book and the décor is changed every year and there is a roster of people who visit the site daily to keep it tidy and monitor the content of the comments in the Visitor book.

I did not know the detail of this until last evening (Wednesday) several days after our visit. This was because Alison had a visitor at her house. Naomi is a Doctor on Yell but lives on Unst and is also a bassoon player who is taking lessons in Lerwick to improve her skills. She (as it turns out) is also one of the bus shelter keepers, so we were treated to insider stories on the history and how it all works.
Google Earth has several images of former styles. Go to Google Earth and type in Baltasound and you can see them and the afore mentioned airport

There was another bus shelter at the end of the road to our cottage but it only featured two garden chairs no doubt donated by local bus users.

There is no doubt in my mind that the Shetlanders have made good use of the oil and gas revenues, and one cannot help but reflect how harsh life could have been without it, and the need to plan for the day when those revenues are no longer available.

There are proposals for some large wind farms, and there is significant local opposition to the proposals based on the carbon cost of the construction. No doubt the concerns are genuine, but I have to wonder if the same people actually have any alternate proposals, or if their preference is just to complain without offering solutions. You can go all over the world and the basic issues appear to be the same!