Shetland Isles - Final hours on British Soil

It just goes to show you how people are always ready to surprise you. We met this morning with a very nice man from NorthLink ferries, Mike Savage.

Mike had moved to Shetland around two years earlier after opting out of the manic lifestyle of the mainland. I went into the meeting expecting a real battle. Truth is told I didn’t really have the energy for it, but I needed to get the damage to the bikes resolved.

My concerns were simple; trying to get any largish firm to act in a way that does not follow “laid down NORMAL procedures” is always hard, especially so, when you want that firm to hand over money.

30 minutes into the meeting I had explained to Mike the damage to the bikes, the reasons for the world trip and the importance/urgency of getting things sorted ASAP.

2 ½ hours later Mike came back with a working solution, at least a financial one anyway. I had managed to get a few quotes for repairs and with these and a chat to the financial controller; Mike promised that an amount of £1,250.00 would be issued to our account later that day. No real problems, no battle, no repeating the same arguments over and over. What a refreshing change. Needles to say, our impression of NorthLink Ferries went up dramatically. If you’re reading this Mike, thank you very much.

The rest of today has been spent packing up, re-sorting bags and trying to see some of Shetland. Dreadful rain and thick fog haven’t helped. Our ferry leaves at 22:30 from Lerwick to arrive in Bergen, Norway at 21:00.

These next few hours will be our final ones on British soil for quite a while......