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Shetland: The spectacular islands in summer

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A two week holiday in Shetland had just about everything I could ask for from a trip within the British Isles: spectacular wildlife on the ground, in the air and out at sea, distant views over stunning scenery, and human history around every corner. Having a longing to spend time on islands, a liking for ferries and a fasciation for abandoned villages, as well as a constant struggle to keep my mind from wandering to nature, Shetland, could just have been the perfect holiday location for me.

I’ve long been wanting to visit Shetland. Ever since starting an odyssey of Scottish Islands 16 years ago, this most northerly archipelago has been calling to me. After having travelled to so many of the Inner and Outer Hebrides as well as it’s southern neighbours in Orkney, Shetland was the last of the major groups of Scottish islands I had to visit. So, after planning the trip for well over a year, and trying to contain my excitement for just as long, we travelled up to these most northerly of the British Isles for a mid-summer holiday in June 2025.

I have to say, it’s not the easiest of places to get to, or, at least, not the quickest, especially if travelling by car; but all good things come to those who wait (or travel far). To be honest, a love a good long road trip, so the drive to Shetland was never going to be an issue. As we made our way up from the East Midlands, we had an overnight stay in Cumbria before a leisurely drive up and across to Aberdeen to catch the overnight ferry to Lerwick, Shetland’s capital. The Northlink ferry identical twins, Hjaltland and Hrossey, are comfortable ships for the 12-hour crossing, particularly if you pay for a cabin. We spent a good while up on deck watching the Scottish land mass disappear and looking out for seabirds and marine life. While waiting for the ferry, we had earlier seen a large pod of dolphins hunting in mouth of Aberdeen Harbour, but sadly didn’t see them again from the ship.

By the time dinner had been eaten and we had a final look out over the sea, it very quickly reached bed time. The cabins are quite a cosy places to spend the night and, fortunately, the blinds in our cabin were good enough to black out most of the very light night sky, as it tends to be in June. It is also a very quick get up in the morning; with the ship docking at 7:00am, there is time for a fast breakfast and a wander up on deck as the ship passes the southern tip at Sumburgh and travels up the long, thin southern spine of the Shetland Mainland. Unfortunately, we didn’t get good views on the way into the port at Lerwick as low cloud shrouded the islands and we had only brief glimpses of the landscapes we were to become very familiar with. As we left the ferry behind us, in good hobbit-style we had second breakfast at a very good cafe (Fjarå) towards the southern end of Lerwick before heading off to our first base for our holiday.

The holiday really began as we boarded the ship but our Shetland experience started properly as we drove out of Lerwick in search of our cottage out on the western side of Mainland. For the first five nights we stayed at a fantastic modern cottage the far side of Walls. Westshore is very smart, clean, comfortable and well-equipped rental property with a contemporary style and great big windows giving wide panoramic views over a wide sweep of sea lochs and low rolling pastureland. The cottage is accessed by a rocky and slightly winding track between two gates, often dotted with dozing ewes and their lambs. The mixture of landscape, sea, wildlife and those sheep, gave a constantly shifting world outside the windows of the cottage which I could have happily sat and watched for hours on end.

After being welcomed by the owner, we unloaded our heavily-laden car and unpacked, looked at the scenery for a little while and then headed the 35 minutes back to Lerwick for a wander and to purchase provisions. 

Our first couple of journeys highlighted two things which we were to remark on throughout our stay. Firstly, just how good the roads are; so much of the islands are covered by fast single carriageway (i.e. a lane in each direction) and there’s barely a pothole to be found. As you get to some of the further reaches of the islands, where roads provide access to a few smaller communities, they do narrow down to single track roads (one lane with passing places), but even in summer (we travelled just before the schools finished), there isn’t much traffic to meet on these roads. 

The second thing we noted was that the weather can change from one part of the islands to another. As we travelled between our first accommodation and Lerwick, one side of the Mainland was bright and sunny while the other was under dark, dampening skies. It is around 15 miles between where we were staying at Walls and Lerwick, as the crow flies, but more like 25 miles by road. This is not far off the widest part of Mainland, which gives a good distance for the weather to change its mind. Heading between the two places, the roads meet two pronounced moorland-covered ridges, with the valley of Weisdale between (more on Weisdale later). This change in height may contribute to the differences in weather with these ridges being some of the first hills that the wind from the Atlantic meets, creating cloud as the air rises; we certainly saw this happening when we were further down to the south of Mainland. This increase in height also provides opportunities to see great distances (when the weather allows() down the spine of Shetland: at good spots on these ridges you can park at the side of the road and see the islands laid out in front of you towards the south.

Our wander around Lerwick took us through the old town, including coming across the Shetland Pride march, and down to the harbour, where a German sail training ship had docked and was attracting significant attention. Also docked were two cruise ships of different scales, the like of which we would see a few of with our subsequent stops in the capital. Despite some of the cruise ships being enormous, we didn’t come across too many of their passengers, especially away from Lerwick itself, and they never impacted on our holiday.

That afternoon, we also went to the Shetland Museum, located a little way to the north of the town centre; it’s great and gave us a very good introduction to culture and history of the islands, which we were to explore more of over the course of the next two weeks. Readers of my blog may have seen previous posts about visiting villages that had been emptied of their communities as a result of the Highland Clearances. The museum provided some detailed context to the longer history both before and after that period but also details of what life would have been like for communities during that particularly harsh period in the islands’ history. What we saw in the museum was brought to life in our travels around many parts of the islands and in particular by the ancient standing stones, the viking remains and the almost unbelievable number of abandoned houses and communities that we came across. Over the course of the trip we also visited smaller museums at Eshaness and on Unst and Fetlar; while not as polished as their larger, Lerwick counterpart, these were well worth a visit to learn more about Shetland’s past.

As we eventually drove back west for our first night in the cottage, we started to become familiar with the landscapes we would travel through over the next two weeks. There is no ‘typical’ landscape in the islands around Scotland but Shetland has similarities to many of those I have visited before, particularly its nearest large neighbour, Orkney. They share a landscape of low rolling coastal pastureland, dotted with crofts and smaller clusters of homes in hamlets and larger villages. Shetland, however, has far more of the rugged upland moor, with large areas of Mainland, Yell and Unst given over to this sparser populated, more hilly landscape. The deeply indented coastline provides both rocky high cliffs and lower rolling fields reaching down to the sea, with some stunning sandy beaches, pebbly shorelines and a small harbour almost around each corner. The variation means that the landscape seems to constantly change and in a few minutes you can have gone from the sometimes bleak and stark upland, with its dancing carpets of cotton grass,  to the softer, lush green pasture along the coasts.

The first few days were spent travelling around Mainland, visiting the islands of Noss to the east and Papa Stour to the west, taking a trip down to the road-linked islands of Trondra, West Burra and East Burra, to the south of Scalloway, and a long day out to the north west of Mainland including wandering around the spectacular area of Eshaness.

The only real disappointments of the entire trip came in the first two days. Both of our pre-booked boat trips were cancelled due to poor weather. The first was a trip to the sea below the towering seabird cliffs of Noss, an island beyond Bressay to the east of Lerwick, and the second was a night-time trip to Mousa, an island to the south east of Mainland, during which we hoped to see storm petrels coming into the famous broch. Not only were the planned trips cancelled but so too were both of the rearranged trips. We didn’t let the disappointment of the cancelled boat trips dampen our spirits and on the first full day on Shetland we took a trip to walk around Noss instead, and it was perhaps the best day of the entire holiday: more of which I’ll cover in a specific blog post. 

The day on Papa Stour was a particular highlight. We left the car at the quayside and took the 40 minute ferry from West Burafirth to the island. On arrival, we set off on foot along the only road, serving the few scattered homes, turned north and crossed the airstrip, and then made our way on a winding route along the west coast. The route is spectacular; like so much of the Shetland coast, this part of Papa Stour is dotted with geos (a narrow, steep-sided inlet), islets, stacks and rock arches. The walk is quite winding as you head in and out of headlands created by the geos and in the strong wind we were careful not to get too close to the edge of the coast. As we reached the northern-most part of the walk we turned onto a track for the return leg and the long-threatened rain began. It was heavy but short-lived; we got drenched but with the return of the sun and the strong wind, most of our clothes were drying by the time we got back to the harbour. Like many of the other harbours where the ferries dock, there was a little terminal building with a waiting room and toilets, as well as hot drinks, souvenirs and tablet (a very nice Scottish fudge-like sweet) paid on an honesty box basis. After making use of the facilities we had a lovely sit in the warm sun in a little sheltered spot to give our legs a rest after the rugged eight mile walk.

I can’t mention an ‘honesty box’ without highlighting the cake fridges of Shetland. We have come across them elsewhere, especially in Harris, but the number and variety of these little unstaffed shops was particularly great in Shetland. We bought cakes, jam and fresh berries from the various ‘cake fridges,’, we stopped at.

A day spent out on the far north-west of Mainland, eventually stopping at Eshaness was also one to remember. It was another day of grand Shetland coastal landscapes with high cliffs, rocky beaches and off-shore islands. Eshaness itself is worth a wander around once you get to the lighthouse with views that go on for miles, across the green pasture, along the rugged coastline and out to sea. On the way there we stopped at Mavis Grind, a narrow isthmus linking the Mainland to what would be a separate island but for this narrow 90 metre piece of land. It is said you can through a rock between the water on either side, from the Atlantic to the North Sea, but I’m not sure my throwing arm is that good. On the way back we stopped at Stennes Beach to the south to sea Dore Holm, out outlying island with a huge natural arch; we also stopped at Frankie’s Fish & Chips shop, which was great!

Having been to many Scottish Islands at this time of year, we knew that we shouldn’t expect wall-to-wall sunshine and Mediterranean temperatures, and the cancellation of the boat trips is just part and parcel of holidays on the coasts of the UK. However, over the course of the two weeks, the weather we had was probably 40% sunny, 40% cloudy and 20% rainy and, of course, 90% windy. While it was rarely warm when we were out in the open, typically 12 to 14 degrees celsius, the mid-summer sun was strong enough to make it almost hot in sheltered spots. There were actually only a couple of days over the whole two weeks when the rain altered or limited our plans and the wind did get strong enough on one of our trips to Hermaness to make us retreat away from the cliffs to reduce the risk of being blown over the edge. Overall, therefore, the weather was what we expected for a trip this far north.

Our five nights at Westshore were followed by a single night at the Sumburgh Hotel, at the very far south of Mainland. This gave us a chance to visit some of the main sites south of Lerwick including St Ninian’s Isle, Loch Spiggie, the amazing historical site of Jarlshof and, of course, Sumburgh Head itself. We visited the rocky outcrop, with its lighthouse, twice over 24 hours, firstly in the afternoon and then first thing in the morning before breakfast. We went, in particular, in search of close views of puffins and while during the afternoon visit we found comparatively few, the dawn visit presented us with good numbers in the perfect morning light. However, Sumburgh isn’t just all about puffins. This southern-most tip of Mainland has great 360 degree views including out towards Fair Isle, which is visible to the south. There are birds other than puffins too.

The birdlife was one of the main reasons for going to Shetland and weren’t disappointed. Yes, puffins are plentiful and fairly easy to find but so is an array of other birds which make the island a great place to wander around with a pair of binoculars. The seabirds dominate the islands with the cliffs and off-shore islands providing nesting for large numbers. There’s also a large supporting cast of wetland birds, waders and gull as well as the ever menacing skuas and other birds typical of the north in the UK. I’ll do another post to provide more details.

Our final accommodation of the trip was a seven-night stay in a renovated croft cottage on the island of Unst at the very top of Shetland; in fact, it’s the most northerly populated island in the British Isles. After breakfast at Sumburgh, we headed back to Lerwick to replenish our stocks and then took two ferries, first between Mainland and Yell, and then between Yell and Unst. 

Car-based travel around Shetland is very easy, with the good roads I’ve already mentioned and frequent ferry crossings on the main routes between Mainland, Yell and Unst. The prices for the ferries are also amazingly cheap, in my view. Prices are £2.80 per passenger for a return ticket, including the ferries to Yell, Bressay, Fetlar and Papa Stour we took. Cars are more expensive, at £16.50 return but even this seems cheap for the longer crossings. What did confuse us at the time was that you don’t seem to pay for the ferry between Yell and Unst. We made that crossing four times (two return trips) and no one ever took payment. On returning home, we checked and it appears that it is indeed a free ferry, possibly to reduce the burden of travel costs for locals.

With the good roads, and frequent ferries on the main routes, it’s also quite quick to get from north to south, especially if you time it right with the ferry crossings. Sumburgh Head in the far south to the ferry crossing to Yell in the north of Mainland is little over an hour while Yell takes around 25 minutes to cross by car, as does Unst. So, allowing for ferries, you can travel the full length of Shetland by car in significantly less than three hours. 

The general advice is book the ferry crossings, even for the more frequent routes for Yell and Unst, but definitely for the less frequent crossings, say to Fetlar and Papa Stour. However, we often turned up early for our booked ferry and were waved on by the crews with the ferries having space to spare. The ferries on the main routes, including to Yell, Unst, Fetlar and Bressay are full ‘drive-through’ vessels where you drive forwards both getting on and off them. However, on return from Fetlar, I did have to reverse onto the ferry to enable it to arrive back into Unst pointing in the right direction. To be fair, it wasn’t a difficult manoeuvre, partly helped by there only being three cars on that particular crossing. If the idea of reversing on or off a ferry puts you off, then you might want to leave the car behind if you go to Fetlar or Foula, as you have no choice but to reverse onto that ferry. However, that is largely a moot point as there’s little point in taking the car to those islands if you’re on a day trip.

On reaching Unst, we had a very convenient 10 minute drive to the cottage on the west coast of the island. Like Westshore, the cottage was accessed first by a single track road, then a private track with two gates to pass through. The second gate for was a little fenced corral for the car, and very soon we could see why it was a good thing to park in there. The cottage was in the middle of a sheep field, and while the front and side of the house, as well as the parking space, we inside a fence, the back of the house wasn’t; we got very used to finding lambs standing on the low stone wall at the back, looking into the lounge. I suspect the car would have become a convenient rubbing post for the local sheep without the protection of the fence. The cottage itself was very clean, comfortable and cosy, and had everything we needed for a week’s stay. Being an old croft cottage, like others we have stayed in previously, it has relatively small windows, unlike Westshore the previous week, which meant that, despite arguably having even better views, we didn’t get the benefit of them when inside the cottage.

Our week on Unst, like the previous week, included nature, landscapes and some history with highlights including two trips to the amazing Hermaness nature reserve, day trips to Fetlar and Yell, and a good walk in the south east of the island to some historical sites. Some of these I’ll also write about in separate posts. Highlights also included visiting the most northerly pub and shop in the UK and seeing the site of the first space port being built in the UK (although there isn’t a visitor centre for it, yet).

As long as you don’t mind a long walk out to the cliffs across open moorland (but mostly on a boardwalk), Hermaness is a must for anyone with a liking for seabirds and maritime scenery, and we simply had to go twice! The gannet cliffs are enormous and you can get close enough for some very nice photographs, while being careful not to disturb them or get blown off the top. The nature reserve also provides a sight of the most northerly point of the British Isles, the island of Out Stack, just north of Muckle Flugga with is lighthouse. 

A trip to Fetlar is also very much worth it with a chance to find red-necked phalaropes (which we did fleetingly) and yet more lovely scenery. We also had one of the best views of an otter there, with one munching on a massive crab we saw it bring to shore. As I have put in another post, we had some great otter sightings, with Unst being the most productive in our search for them, contrary to the view we had heard that this was the least promising place to look.  

During our stay, I spent the quiet evenings reading a book providing a fictionalised account of the Weisdale Evictions; the clearing of communities from villages in that valley between the two ridges dissecting the widest part of Mainland. As I have written on my blog a few times, I find this part of Scottish history fascinating and I’m drawn to the villages abandoned either through the Highland Clearances or later as people found living in these places increasingly impossible. Shetland is covered with abandoned homes and settlements like nowhere else I’ve seen and I simply had to take a walk out to spend time amongst then ruined walls of these deserted communities. We did a walk out to Colverdale on the south-east coast of Unst. Starting at Hannigarth, we walked along Sandwick beach and then on through the Viking history of Framgord and on to Colverdale, with tumbled-down houses scattered across a wide area criss-crossed by field walls and paths. The sense of communities lost was almost tangible under the dark clouds spreading dampness and gloom across the now silent landscape.

After a busy week on Unst, we set off early in the morning to catch the ferry to Yell for the last time, crossed the island and caught the ferry back to the Mainland before driving all the way back to Sumburgh. With the ferry back to Aberdeen not until late afternoon, we had chance for a final bit of puffin watching and then a slow drive up the coast, including a beach walk. The ferry crossing was a little more rough on the way home but not uncomfortably so and despite the gloom we had good views of Fair Isle as we passed it a couple of hours into the crossing and then the coast of Orkney as we stopped there very late into the evening. As we woke the next morning, not long before the ferry docked, the trip came to an end, except for the long seven hour drive back southward.

It took me a long time to write this post; partly because it’s so difficult to sum up those two weeks in just one go. It really deserves far more and I plan, even more than six months later, to write additional posts to ensure I do it, even slightly, some justice.

This was almost without doubt the best trip I’ve had in the UK. That in part was due to having the time over two weeks to spend travelling in a more relaxed way than a single week trip normally allows for. However, the main reason was Shetland itself – it’s spectacular in every way – it is an absolute must for another visit.

Wildlife holidays – a look back on a life-changing first trip

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Next month it will be 15 years since I had a holiday that, with no exaggeration, changed the course of my life.

In 2009, I was in my eleventh year of my career and settled into a routine of working long hours and doing far too little with my time away from the office. I had long held an interest in nature but was doing absolutely nothing about it apart from some cycling in the local countryside and occasionally thumbing through the pages of BBC Wildlife Magazine. Essentially, an interest I had held since childhood was a barely burning ember of what could have been a passion. 

However, a spark from the ember had been floating in the air for sometime, wafted by the pages of that magazine, in particular the pages showing adverts for wildlife holidays. Every once in a while I had noticed one of those adverts and had a cursory look at the linked website. On one such visit to those pages I came across a holiday that would eventually catch that spark and ignite it.

From being a child, I always felt a calling of the northern forests – probably after seeing pretty rubbish 1970s American TV movies about families surviving in the wilderness either after a shipwreck or heading out to escape the rat race. After very little Googling, I found the one I remember most, called ‘Sea Gypsies’. There were more including ‘The Wilderness Family’, with the father of the family seemingly always played by Robert Logan. 

The holiday I had noticed was to just such forests, but those of central Sweden and the Bergslagen Forest in particular. It seemed a good trip on which to test whether liked such holidays; it was only a short distance from where some of my family live and, so I could see them while also having a few days in nature.

Having already arrived in Sweden a few days earlier, I was given a lift to the local airport at Västerås where I met the guide and the four other guests, before we headed out for the one hour drive to our venue for the first three of the next four nights. We were staying at the basic but very comfortable hostel-type accommodation of Grimsö Wildlife Research Station, which is part of the Swedish agricultural university. Here, amongst other things, they research the interaction of the country’s wildlife with farming.

That first evening, after we had settled in, we headed out in the minibus to search for European elk (älg in Sweden and Moose in American). The sun was dropping slowly, occasionally blinding us as we headed towards it amongst the roadside forest. It had rained not long before leaving Grimsö and the last of the springtime warmth from the early May sunshine was evaporating the lying water and steaming off the road’s surface with mist forming down at the bottom of the shallow valley meadows. We turned off the quiet main road and onto unmade dirt tracks, slowing down to a crawl as we rounded bends and came across each meadow amongst the thick pine forest. We drew a few blanks at first but eventually, standing at the edge of the trees, we saw two dark shapes emerge and there were two adult elk quietly grazing the long, damp grass. They after a little while sloped off into the forest but we were to come across more as we continued along the tracks, finding 17 in all over a couple of hours. In some ways these creatures were the stars of the trip, not just because they are the ‘kings of the forest’ but because we saw a lot of them. Quite often on such trips you get fleeting glimpses of an animal’s hind quarters as it disappears into dense undergrowth but in this case they were very easy to see feeding at dusk in numerous forest clearings.

Before returning to Grimsö, we stopped the minibus at the base of a walking track and hiked the short distance up to a rocky clearing high above the valleys. It was here that we would have our first attempt at trying to converse with the local wolf packs. With a bit of instruction, we cupped  our hands around mouths and howled out chilly evening air over the hills and forest. After 10 or 20 seconds, we stopped to hear if we had a reply. Unfortunately, there no howls coming back and after another failed attempt, we headed back down to the waiting minibus. We were told that the wolves could have heard us much further away that we could have heard them, so I liked to think that they had indeed called back but just out of earshot.

The next morning, after being out late, we had a walk through the forest looking generally for wildlife and experiencing the Swedish wilderness. The evening before was the first time I had ever been in a wolf territory and it stirred something visceral inside me, a true sense of wildness and some trepidation. Even walking in daylight in a group of people, I felt the presence of wolves and a deep feeling of the wild and untamed. Walking across the uneven, moss and rock covered ground amongst the birch and pines, we found wolf prints, scat (droppings) and the very old remains of a wolf-killed elk with only fur remaining. That walk, rather than the attempt at howling the evening before, triggered a yearning to see wolves in the wild that has never left me and it has led to more trips in search of them in several more European countries.

The evening was spent focusing on beavers with a canoe trip on a quiet and slow-moving river. We were picked up by another guide and made our way to a nearby river bank where we unloaded three large Canadian-style canoes and launched them into the river. At dusk we moved off and paddled calming up stream, hearing the slowly quietening birdlife and the rippling of the water against the side of the canoes. Our patience was tested with a long wait and we had seen no sign of the animals by the time we turned back to our launch site. However, almost as we were about to give up hope, we came across a dark lump floating around in the water. A brief glimpse ended with a loud slap of its tail and it dived beneath the water and permanently out of our sight. We returned to minibus with only that short sighting of the beaver and with a little disappointment we headed back to Grimsö for the night. Little did I know that years later, in a lake only a few miles away, I would regularly see both adult and young beavers during annual stays at a family summerhouse in the forest.

The second full day started with some free time and I took a walk around the area close by the research station. Our guide had heard there was a very special nest that we could possibly go to see and we headed out to find it. After more walking over the uneven forest ground, we came across a tall tree stump with a shattered top. At the very top, at first hard to see, was a nesting great grey owl, sitting very still on a clutch of eggs. It seemed almost oblivious to our presence apart from an occasional glimpse in our direction but we soon reversed away so not to disturb this amazing bird from its nest.

Later that evening we again headed out into the forest in search of wolves in hope of hearing them howl. We had our evening meal out in the open as we sat around a warming campfire, which kept the cooling effects of the damp spring air at bay. As we sat around the first, the tour guide’s small dog walked to the edge of the huddled group and growled out towards the darkness. A shiver shot down my spine; ‘could there be a wolf out there watching us?’ I thought to myself, a sense of both fear and excitement coursing through me. A spotlight was shone out into the surrounding woods, going from point to point, pausing and moving on, trying to pick up movement or the shining retinas of staring eyes but there was nothing looking back at us. 

Afterwards, we had another couple of attempts, at different locations, to howl out into the forest in hope that wolves in the darkness would howl back in return. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be and we headed back to the research station with perhaps the biggest hope of the trip dashed for a final time.

The last full day started with a long drive north. We may our way to a small lakeside homestead and then out into the surrounding forest. Eventually we arrived at a wooden shelter at the edge of a clearing. Set up with desk chairs, bunk beds and a toilet, we settled in for a long night as we waited for brown bears to appear. We had seen their paw prints on route to the hide but that was the closest we got to them. As it became too dark to see beyond the small viewing slots, we all headed to our bunks and in the morning the view was still empty apart from a cawing raven or two. The ravens called out a range of different sounds, varying significantly over the course of our stay in the hide. We were told that they have distinct calls when a bear is nearby and each time they made a different noise there was a little jump in expectation but each time the hope ebbed away again. We reluctantly and sadly made our way back to the homestead for a very good breakfast, but only after very gingerly opening the door to the hide, just in case the bears were waiting for us behind it.

With another long and uneventful drive back south away from the unseen bears, that was it, my first wildlife trip was over. The only notable moment on the journey was when we were driving along a particularly long and straight road and we saw a car heading towards on the wrong side of the road (for Sweden). It only moved back to the correct side at the last moment and we had slowed down to avoid it. Very kindly, I was dropped off at the home of my Swedish family and said goodbye to the rest of the group as they went onwards to the airport for the flight home.

What had I learned from the trip? Well, it showed me that wildlife holidays can be deeply immersive experiences, spending time in nature with people who know so much about it or, like me, want to learn and share it with others. I also found that you can’t guarantee seeing the wildlife but just being in the places they inhabit can be almost as good, even if you don’t see the species you really want to. I’ve come to value finding the breath of nature in the places I visit, the true experience isn’t always seeing a particular animal but being in locations that have so much wealth in their ecosystems that we simply don’t have in the UK. Overall, that trip really did reignite my love of nature and I returned enthused and energised to actually do something with that passion I had found.

That holiday changed so much. Within 18 months, I’d been on three further wildlife holidays with the same tour company, to the Scottish islands of Islay and Jura that autumn, to Iceland in the following late winter and to Spain, to look for wolves again, the following autumn. The Sweden trip also put the idea of wildlife volunteering into my head and I started to look for local opportunities close to home, although I didn’t do anything about it immediately. However, the idea was firmly planted and it was to become a central part of my life away from work.

In 2011, two years after that first trip, I had no more wildlife holidays planned and work was particularly busy and not very happy. Despite those trips, I hadn’t made any further changes to my life to grow that interest in nature. However, not being happy at work and frustration with my home life led to the biggest decision of my life to that date; to take a year off. 

Over that year, I spent many weekdays and Sundays volunteering locally, nine weeks residential volunteering for the RSPB at three sites across Scotland and Wales, I went on wildlife holidays to Speyside, Norfolk, Mull and Iceland (again) and had 11 weeks in Sweden over course of four visits. This intense period focusing on watching and photographing wildlife, and volunteering, transformed my life after I returned to work, ensuring I was infinitely happier in both my work life and home life.

When I returned to work, I continued to volunteer both locally and more widely; with a local group in Cheshire, with an osprey project in North Wales and on RSPB Ramsey Island, with the latter culminating in a three-month stay in 2019. I also continued to take wildlife holidays including, up to now, another trip to Spain to find wolves (which I did), and others to the Falkland Islands, Finland (successfully finding bears), Botswana (twice), Poland and Zambia plus various self-guided trips in England, to the Inner and Outer Hebrides, and Orkney. 

That trip to Sweden, eventually, via a very winding route, led me to take that second trip to Botswana, to the Kalahari, was where I met my wife, Sarah. So, finally deciding to actually do something about my wildlife interest, rather than occasionally imaging that I should, has changed my life way beyond anything my imagination could have come up with when I was thumbing those pages of the wildlife magazine and glancing at the wildlife holiday adverts.