Welcome to the South Mainland
The peninsula, which runs 25 miles south from Lerwick, has some of Shetland's most attractive scenery and an extraordinary concentration of archaeological sites, including Europe's best-preserved broch and two remarkable Iron Age villages.
Shetland Ponies
Just north of Quarff, the lay-by next to the Brindister Loch is usually one of the best places to meet Shetland Ponies, bred at the farm nearby.
Out in the loch, a tiny island holds the ruins of a dun, a prehistoric fort. Returning to Lerwick, the main road skirts Gulberwick where the Viking Earl Rognvald was wrecked in 1148AD. Above the farm of Wick is the Hollanders' Knowe, a traditional trading place between islanders and Dutch fishermen in the 17th and 18th centuries.
So Much to Explore...
Major wildlife attractions include seabird cliffs, nesting storm petrels, wildfowl lochs, seal rookeries and whale-watching viewpoints.
There is excellent walking along the coastline and through the hills which form the spine of the South Mainland. The views from Scousburgh Hill and Fitful Head are on an epic scale: crofts and farmland fringe shell sand beaches and secluded coves; while to seaward are the dramatic silhouettes of Fair Isle and Foula.
Ice carved this landscape out of ancient Old Red Sandstone rocks, some 370 million years old, although there are also much older deposits with soapstone and copper ores. Fossil fish have been found at Exnaboe. The sandy soil and generations of good husbandry have made this Shetland's most productive farmland. The South Mainland also has Shetland's most extensive sand dunes - which have helped to preserve several archaeological sites such as Jarlshof and Old Scatness.
The broch, or fortified Iron Age tower, on the little island of Mousa is the only one in the world to survive almost complete from more than 2,000 years ago, when it was built as a refuge against raiders.
The Shetland Crofthouse Museum in Boddam is a straw-thatched homestead restored as it would have appeared about 100 years ago. Exhibits in the cottage, barn and byre include home made furniture, such as the box bed and Shetland chairs, as well as farm implements and a spinning wheel. Nearby is a restored watermill, typical of those which ground oats and barley for most Shetland crofting townships until larger water mills were built in the mid-19th century. Not far away, Quendale Mill has been beautifully restored and houses a museum of rural life.
All through the district you will find fascinating traces of the past: miniature watermills and old croft townships built in the beautiful local stone; the patterns of ancient fields; and traditional double-ended Shetland boats whose lines speak of their Viking origins.
Sumburgh Head
Shetland's first lighthouse, on Sumburgh Head, is a listed building, built by Robert Stevenson, who accompanied Sir Walter Scott to Shetland in 1814 - a cruise that produced his novel The Pirate, set around Jarlshof and Fitful Head.
