29 June 2026
As I know, having lived and worked on Shetland for a year and from other visits, the islands are a long way north, nearer to Bergen in Norway than to Edinburgh in Scotland and have a proud Viking heritage. They’re definitely not in a little box just north of John O’ Groats (see Mark Cooper-Jones and Jay Foreman (The Map Men), This Way Up, Chapter 8: The Map in a Box; 2025).
This walk explores part of the north of mainland Shetland although interestingly there’s a map anomaly on the Landranger series. Most of the walk is on Map 1: Shetland: Yell, Unst & Fetlar with only a smaller part of the walk exclusively on Map 3: Shetland: North Mainland. However, later in the week I completed my walk for Map 3, all of which was on Yell and appears on Map 3 yet only part of it appears on Map 1 which is the sheet including Yell in the title. This is a rather pedantic way of explaining why my North Mainland walk is assigned to the Yell, Unst and Fetlar map sheet but my Yell walk will be assigned to the North Mainland map sheet. Is this a further story for “The Map Men” to explore?
The car I was driving had been hired by my daughter’s father-in-law who had kindly added me as a named driver and even more kindly (?foolishly!) had agreed to let me take the car to North Mainland for the day. Hence I was very careful and chose to park at North Roe Hall (my planned walk passed the hall) rather than a more risky spot near the track up Collafirth Hill. My walk started (rather than ended) with a trek in wind and intermittent rain of almost 5km along the scenic and quiet single track road – an A road seemingly only because it’s the main road from the far south to the far north of mainland Shetland and not because it’s busy. I passed Collafirth Pier, built in 1988 on the site of an old Nowegian whaling station and now home to one of Britain’s largest fishing boats.
I gained significant height climbing the track to Collafirth Hill (233m). Ronas Hill, the highest point on mainland Shetland and where I was heading is only 450m so, having walked virtually from sea level, I had already completed over half the ascent (there is a bit of downhill between Collafirth and Ronas Hills though).
The terrain changed – significantly. There’s no real path after the track ends at the masts. There are a lot of red rocks and, as the information board explains, many unusual alpine and Arctic-alpine plants grow in this inhospitable, windswept area with a very short growing season.
I passed into cloud with poor visibility so I certainly needed map and compass skills. A few cairns mark the route but too few to be able to rely on them for navigation.
I continued to walk uphill over difficult ground, trying to avoid the worse of the bog and eventually reached the trig point and shelter. Behind the trig point, I found a plastic box and signed the visitor book – a first although this is at least the fourth time I have climbed Ronas Hill. I don’t think I ever found the book before as I probably didn’t need to shelter from the wind at the top if the conditions were better. I was the first of the day to sign, but there had been a few visitors the previous day, at least one of whom had visited Lang Ayre where I was heading.
I also had a look at the nearby Neolithic chambered cairn. It’s well preserved, probably built between 4,000 and 2,500 BC. There’s a passage into a rectangular chamber with a single cap stone. Some of the exterior isn’t thought to be original.
I headed off downhill and west towards Ronas Voe, moving out of the cloud and enjoying some fine views.
My course veered round to northerly as I traversed tussocky and pathless terrain, keeping an eye out for any bonxies (great skuas). These large birds nest on the ground and are naturally highly protective of their nests. They weigh 2-3lb and don’t hesitate to mount aerial attacks on unwary walkers! At least I had my trekking pole to lift high above me if I was concerned – they tend to attack whatever is highest.
Eventually I reached the stream which enters the sea near the south end of Lang Ayre; this point is the only breach in the towering cliffs 150m to 210m high along much of its mile or so length. Even so the route isn’t for the faint-hearted and there’s a fixed rope to assist with the final descent to the beach.
I wouldn’t like to be down there in a storm with the potential for rocks falling from over 200m above me! The cliffs consist of impossibly huge blocks of red stone and I was walking along a beach consisting of fine red shingle that had crumbled off from above. It wasn’t easy walking! I could also see awesomely enormous stacks and arches. This must surely rank amongst the top beaches in UK but is so incredibly inaccessible.
I turned back before reaching the end, not sure how long my nerve would hold as I considered the risks of cliff fall in this place. I was also a bit worried about how difficult I might find the rope assisted climb up from the beach.
I found the spot for ascent and began the precarious climb. It was also a steep ascent on grass from the stream valley as I began to head north over the cliff tops. Bonxies were circling and I kept a wary eye on them.
The walk towards the north was also over land without paths. It was undulating with many rocks, peat hags and the ongoing threat of bonxies. The bonxies did put on a tremendous display of aerial acrobatics as I sat eating a late lunch at a safe distance.
A helicopter, probably the coastguard, was flying over Lang Ayre and the moor. Not sure what they were looking for as I hadn’t seen anyone else on the moor and they didn’t appear to land anywhere near.
I enjoyed views of coastal scenery from the cliff tops while inland there are dozens of small lochs speckling the moorland plus a fair few larger ones.
I reached fences and crofting land before reaching the end of the track towards North Roe. I could see the island of Uyea, accessible from the land at low tide, on the north west corner of the North Mainland.
I passed near some hillocks – the Beorgs of Uyea. This is the site of a Neolithic axe factory and there are some impressive examples of polished axe heads found in this area to be seen in the fine Shetland museum in Lerwick. I didn’t see any lying on the ground though!
I managed to disentangle some heroically intricate knots holding various gates closed and then tie them up again after passing through. Eventually I turned out on to the A970 next to North Roe School. I was glad that I’d completed the vast majority of the road section of my route in the morning. It still seemed a long way to the car park at North Roe Hall, despite the distractions of seeing swans and Arctic terns on nearby Burra Voe.
I had achieved what I had set out to do and made a first visit down to the beach at Lang Ayre as well as a repeat visit to iconic Ronas Hill. This is indeed a wild and remote part of Shetland and I saw no other people from where I left the track at Collafirth Hill (where there was someone in a camper van) until I was back on the A970 at North Roe.
Where's Kathryn? 