Off to the Outer Hebrides, July 18-20, WTRD 43-45
Wednesday, July 18, WTRD 43We got an early start this morning from Inverness to Ulapool, a northern city where we will board the car ferry for a two and half hour sail to the the island of Lewis and Harris in the outer Hebrides. The clouds are creeping down the mountains, the lakes reflect a silvery sky.
It takes us about an hour and 45 minutes to drive in the drizzle to the ferry. There is no wind and the North Sea channel is relatively calm.
We board the ferry, lock up the car, and climb up a couple of flights stairs to the observation desk where we relax, read, eat lunch, and chat with some fellow passengers, one who is the wife of a visiting pastor from Missouri traveling with her husband who will be relieving a Hebrides parish pastor for a two week holiday. The other passenger is a young Scot heading to the HebCelt Fest that features traditional and pop music. Russ and I will also be going to the HebCelt Fest on Friday. Today is primarily a travel day.
As soon as we reach the port city of Stornoway, we find a local supermarket for a few groceries that we will take to our AirBnB accommodation on the northwestern side of Lewis and Harris.
We will get breakfast with our accommodation, but lunch and dinner are on our own for three days. Where we are going is quite remote from restaurants and we aren't sure what we will find.
It is always interesting shopping in local markets, this one is no exception as we find some unusual refrigerated foods.
Once we have our groceries, our navigation system takes us on the shortest, but not necessarily the fastest or safest route to our destination.
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| Looks Clear One Moment, But We Thought We Saw a Car |
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| YEP! It Crawls up from a Deep Dip |
The roads look a bit dicey and are primarily one lane tracks with pullouts every few hundred yards. Some of the roads disappear into dips that we can barely see and give the appearance that there is no traffic and then a car pops out of nowhere.
We wind our way through the wilds of this nearly treeless landscape past numerous lakes left from the ice age, granite and feldspar outcroppings, heather that finds places to grow amongst the rocks, old peat bogs, and green gold grasses that blow sideways in the wind.
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| Peat Trenches |
Our accommodation for the night is in a small updated home with a gigantic view off the back deck and from our bedroom. The owners of the home are Paul, Maggie, and their sweet dog Hamish.
We've brought a pizza to bake and salad fixings.
Views from our bedroom window.
After dinner, we take a hike up the local mound by their house that is a commemorative to early residences who fought to keep their homes and livelihood on the island after is was purchased by a weatlhy man who sought to have them all evicted. The monument is made of local stones fitted together to make a striking arch that is very fitting with the landscape.
By l0:45, the dusk is finally growing darker and we retire for the night.
Thursday, July 19, WTRD 43
Maggie and Paul serve up yogurt, fresh fruit, cereals as starters with eggs, bacon, toast, jams and jellies for breakfast. Then we take off for the day. The weather does not look promising, but it is genuine Hebrides weather.
Our first stop of the day are the Callanish Stones. Like Stonehenge and Clava Carin, the beautiful majestic stones stand in a circle and make a Celtic Cross. Early farmers found the stones poking through the peat that had grown up around them. The stones were excavated from the peat growth. Carbon dating of wood fragments from a ceremonial fire of an uncovered fire pit, are from 5,000 years ago.
Each stone is remarkably unique and beautiful. Archaeologists are not sure exactly how the stone were used (for ritual, for ceremonies, for sacrifice, burials, astrological and sun measurements, etc.) Progressive generations added on to the original circle and may have changed and morphed the original significance, until the population vacated the area, and the earth reclaimed the stones.
Our second visit was Gearrannan Blackhouse Village, where rock and thatched roofed dwelling were covered inside and out from black peat soot. The last inhabitants of this very old village left in 1974. The buildings were cleaned up (no evidence of blacksoot inside or out). Two of the buildings are a museum demonstrating what the house interior, and shuttle loom room of a weaver worked.
The house looks cozy and clean now, but one can only imagine how sooty it was. Other buildings in the village are now used as a hostel. From the village, we could look down on a beautiful sea cove and beach.
Stop three was a reconstructed Norse mill wheel house, built from the ruins and granite millstones left behind by the inhabitants of 1,500 years ago. The race was still evident.
The fourth visit of the day was to a Broch, an ancient building structure,(2000 BC) now partial remains of a ruin.
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| File Photo from Wikipedia |
By the time we, reached our last stop, the clouds had grown thick, the wind was blowing the spitting rain sideways. Russ went into the small visitor center to get some information, but we both chose to stay in the car and view the ruins from the parking lot. This stop was call the broch, an unusual structure - one of kind that cannot be attributed to a specific group of people. This was a multi- story rock mound with thatched roof, double walls for insulation. The subterranean floor housed the animals. The inside balconies and partitions housed the people. Who actually built this structure is still a mystery to be solved.
Finished with our day, we returned to our accommodation, fixed our dinner, visited with our hosts, and went to bed.
Friday, July 20, WTRD 43
Today, we are off to Stornoway for a look around and then to the annual HEB CELT festival. It isn't supposed to rain today and the sun seems to be trying to shine through the thinner veils of clouds so we take advantage of a drive and a walk to the beach to take a few photographs before heading to Stornoway. Harris and Lewis are known for their beautiful white (crushed seashells) beaches and aquamarine waters.
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| The mountain sheep leave "Celtic design" in their trodden paths. |
We catch a little blue in the water. Even with the clouds and the mist, the scenery is rugged, wild, and unspoiled in beauty.
Here are some other artistic photos of the Outer Hebrides...Sheep's wool in the morning mist.
The HEB CELT opens at 1:30, so we have time to wonder around Stornoway a bit taking in the pre-excitment activities, visiting the Harris Tweed exhibition,
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| Russ listening at an audio post with the Harris Tweed Headphones |
and a picnic lunch before heading to the festival grounds just below the castle.
eating pulled pork sandwiches for dinner, and ice cream for dessert.
Midway through the festival, we took a break and went up to the castle for a look around.
The castle has been recently refurbished and serves as a lovely event center. When we returned to the Fest,
we enjoyed a family circus that drew all of the families an wee folk into the tent. Great fun, especially in-between shows when the performers held workshops for kids to learn some tumbling, juggling, and trapeze work.
It didn't seem like we walked much, but we wound up with over 10,000 steps and an ear full of lovely music and memories.
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| Tideline |
We returned to our accommodations, nearly an hour away from Stornoway by 10:30. It stayed light for another 45 minutes. We were fortunate not to see or hit any deer on the way home. Our AirBnB hosts had also gone out for the evening and did not return until midnight. They saw plenty of deer after dark and nearly missed hitting one.
We leave in the morning and head south to the Isle of Uig.
