Most people who cross to Mousa go for the broch, a drystone Iron Age tower rising over 13 metres, the best-preserved of its kind anywhere, built around 300 BC with a stair inside its double wall that you can still climb. The island itself is uninhabited, rough grazing and rocky shore across Mousa Sound from Sandwick on the Shetland Mainland; the Mousa Boat crosses in around fifteen minutes, running most days from April to September. From late May to mid-July the same operator runs late-evening trips so passengers can watch storm petrels, small seabirds that nest in cavities in the broch’s walls and only come ashore after dark. Mousa is mentioned twice in Norse sagas — in one, an eloping couple shelter in the broch after being shipwrecked around AD 900. Historic Environment Scotland looks after the site.
© Colin Smith / Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0
