It's time to (hastily) explore the final major chunk of the island, the West Mainland today.

It's about 30 mins from Lerwick. Indeed most things on the island are 30-40 mins from Lerwick which means it's great if your based in Lerwick, but becomes a pain if you find yourself on the fringes of any of the North/South/East/West bits and need to get to the edge of one of the others. That's because of it's silly shape - it should get a more sensible rounded shape like Orkney.

The leaflet for the West of the island is a bit light on suggestions for things to do other than 'lose yourself in the beauty' which is what the Unst and Yell leaflets were like and translates as 'the next fuel pump and shop is 40 miles away'.

That's ok though, I'm getting the hang of this 'lose yourself' nonsense. I'm just going to bimble from one Otter spot to the other to see if I can bag a sighting. From the things that have the little Otters foot symbol next to them on the map I'm getting the hang of what Otters like in life. Sea loch (tidal) with lots of potential for fish, crab and mussels. Calm, no serious currents. No human beings. Despite this, they still tend to only come out in the evenings though so my hopes aren't up that high, I'm just using otter spots as the motivation for getting out today as no ferries or any other council run services (incl. Museums, libraries, even public toilets) are running today because of a strike. Either the fishermen have come out in sympathy or the council control the harbours too as it looks like most sea traffic has stopped. So even if I did manage to find a facility today on my journey I suspect it will be locked.

Let's hope I'm luckier with the otters eh?