The most amazing thing happened on Friday. The sun came out and the wind stopped!!!! It completely shocked the pants off us. We scrambled to seize the opportunity - after finding our shocked pants and putting them back on, we rushed out the door with a baggie of vegimite sandwiches and our hearts full of hope.
We looked around in wonder, still barely able to contain ourselves. We could actually see things and not have to hide our eyes behind our hands to protect them from eyeball seeking rain missiles! Where should we go? If only we had a map... so we went back to the hotel and grabbed a free tourist map.
We started up the road and ran into a local out for a walk whom we had met at the Burns Night Supper; he was the husband of the welsh lady that I sat next to. He is also the guy who designed the free tourist map that we had in our hands. For those who think Brisbane is a small place, try Unst. One of our poverty state schools has more students than the island has residents. He told us to head up the hill to see the Keen of Hamar, so we did.
The Keen of Hamar is a nature reserve, and is home to several plants that grow no where else on earth. Botanists love it, and from the top you can see the cliffs which are beautiful and full of Puffins in the breeding season. It is also referred to as a lunar landscape or, less romantically, a big gravel car park. It's rocky. It's actually an exposed ocean crust called ophiolite, which is apparently quite rare and formed when the continents joined and pinched the ocean in between them, squeezing the ocean floor up and out like a big pimple.
So we walked up the big rocky hill/ocean pimple, passing lots of sheep and climbing over fences. It was pretty cool, until we spied oodles of dark clouds chasing us from behind. They were moving faster than we were, so we had limited time to frolic around before we were going to get wet. So frolic we did, taking as many pictures as possible knowing this could be the only time we get to be outside again for a long time.
Then we got rained on...and saw a rainbow. Then it stopped raining. We walked in the other direction to the post office and posted our postcards which we had been holding onto for the past 3 weeks. Then we said hello to some little oinking piggies that just wanted some company. We sat on some rocks and ate our sandwiches and watched the insanely clear, still water.
Unst is really quite beautiful when it's not attacking you with a zombie-like fury.
