#Valla Field GM/SI-195
There are a few ways to do this summit. You can drive along the access track to the former TACAN site. This track is marked as being unusable about 2/3rd along leaving the final assault by foot. Or you can drive to Newgord and walk past Breck of Newgord and up the steeps slopes. Or you can drive to the hamlet of Alma and park and walk up the less steep slopes. Which is what I did. There’s space for a single car by the track that leads on to the moor. And up here, the chances of meeting walkers on such a remote summit are unlikely. But I met people on both of Unst’s SOTA summits!
I followed the track and the the fence across moorland. It was a bit boggy in places but easy going in reality. However, the problem is not the ground but the local inhabitents, The Bonxie or Great Skua. These are very agressive birds who will dive bomb and try to scratch / hit you with their feet if you walk near their ground nests. There’s lots of footage on Youtube of Bonxie attacks. By August they are a bit less agressive. Hmmm. As I continued to climb I notice the large birds circling, probably 5-10 at a time. They did start to come nearer and lower as I walked on but changing my course.
I did have my “patented” Bonxie protector with me. They attack the highest part of target. With a fishing pole already being higher tan my head in the bag, I added a much bigger visual target. This was a 1.5m long piece of 5m fibreglass dowel with a large blue plastic bag attached. I was hoping any attackers would go for that and be a safe distance above my head. As it was none came much closer than about 10m above me. But it was unnerving to see them circling and get closer. As one or more broke off as I continued walking, another one would rise from the ground and start circling. As they have a wingspan approaching 1.5m, they do seem quite big even when not so close.
A zoomed shot of a Bonxie that had just landed.
It’s about 200m ascent and 1.2km walk so 35mins later I was approaching the trig point. By heck it was blustery at times but the views were supreme. Lots of clouds scudding by then lots of blue sky. Wonderful stuff.
The next target of the day. Saxa Vord GM/SI-157. The installation is the former Cold War RAF Radar Station. They used to have a seriously powerful search radar up here looking for Soviet TU-95s and the like coming to probe UK air defences. With the ending of the Cold War, this was a very expensive to run facility and it was slowly closed down. Part of it has been sold so you can now drive to th lower of the buildings in that phoot. Everyone will tell you it’s abandonned. That’s far from the truth as I was to discover.
One of the things I missed was seeing aircraft. When I lived in Liverpool, it was a few miles from the airport. I grew up watching the planes coming and going. When I lived on the Wirral, I lived a couple of miles from a main VOR site. I used to see lots of aircraft at 30000ft turn as the passed over WAL on the main flight path from this bit of Europe to and from the USA. There was nearly always something visible high up. Now I live near (but not under) Edinburgh Airport flightpath. As I look out of the shack window I can see a steady procession of 737s, A319/320, Dash 8s etc. And in Shetland? Nothing. I saw one plane all the time here and when I tried to photgraph it, the camera autofocussed on my antenna!
I found 40m workable but hard going. There was a lot of excitment to bag this summit with a few people on top of each other and a fair bit of confusion over who I was working. I made it worse by spotting myself on Scrae Field SI-194 first. Despite several people spotting the correct ref, I was asked many times to confirm the ref. Fair enough, but it added to the mild chaos. 40 went quiet and nothing was worked on 30m. Time to move on.
I realised that I didn’t have any photos of my station setup yet. I kicked myself for not taking a shot of the 13cms setup 2 days backl, so I stopped the take down and snapped away.
The 5m pole collapsed with dipole legs still attached, trig point and old disused TACAN base in the background. Andy’s patented Bonxie target is on the right.
Looking back across Bluemull Sound to Yell. In the very far distance, Ronas Hill GM/SI-086, the biggest Shetland summit can be seen.
The walk back to the pickup, parked by the nearest buildings on the left. The heather was in full bloom.
This is a very easy summit but had not been on the air since 2011. I survived any Boxies as well. Back at the pickup, time for a chocolate bar and then the drive North to Britain’s most Northerly Marilyn.
