An extremely lazy start to the day, or possibly we are preparing to hibernate! Still finishing off breakfast at 10.30am.
Given the weather was so dismal we decide it’s a day for driving, and the plan is to visit the lighthouse at the northernmost point of the island (Butt of Lewis), via the standing stones at Callanish.
The road heading back to civilisation from Marbhig is very slow, though surprisingly well surfaced, and it’s very narrow but with regular passing places. Once you hit the two lane super-highway north you make much better time.
Arriving at an almost empty car park we get out of the car to find half the population has followed us in and it is suddenly busy (well in reality this is about five other couples, who all physically distance themselves from us and the others). Avoiding the Visitor Centre, a short walk takes us to the stones.
Eric looks aghast at the level of erosion at the centre piece (we may be contributing here I guess).
After admiring the ancient stones here we start off on a walk that will take us to a further two historic standing stone sites out on the marshland.
A short while later and the driving drizzle means we abandon the further sites for a return to the car. Back to the road and head north thinking we’ll call into the Black House village at Gearrannan which looks interesting.
It doesn’t disappoint, even though the actual houses were closed up due to Covid19 restrictions. The structures themselves were fascinating. You might expect Bilbo Baggins to appear out of one of them at any moment.
These were the first inhabited buildings in Scotland, and believe it or not, the last resident moved out only in the 1970’s. There was cut peat in large stacks in the garden for the fires. Harris and Lewis is still one of the remaining places left in Scotland where the practice of cutting peat for fuel still takes place apparently.
This is the beach below the village. It has temporarily stopped raining, although the skies are still leaden grey.
Our next stop takes us the surfing beach at Dial Beag, where it is raining, so the photograph does not do it justice. There was a sign for a cafe and crafts shop in one of the houses, but we managed to resist a visit.
The heavy drizzle continues intermittently as we travel further North. We call at another Historic Scotland Blackhouse but this is also shut. The information board outside provides some historical detail - this one was last occupied in the 1960’s.
Since we are stopped and the car park has a good view across the fields to the sea beyond, it provides a spot for us to indulge in our pre-prepared picnic snack late lunch, with tea from the Thermos.
Fully fuelled up in a Covid safe manner the next stop is the Butt of Lewis and the lighthouse. Turning off the well populated road to Ness, we travel along narrower lanes, dodging quite a few cyclists on the way. Along the coast we also pass what are called Agricultural Lazy Beds, and arable farming method used in the past that creates large ridge and furrow lines.
On reaching the lighthouse we are surprised to see that it looks as though it has been built fairly recently, rather than being an ancient model, as it is made up of red bricks and not painted white (or any other colour for that matter). Even more surprisingly the information board informs us it was in fact built in the 1860’s - so pretty ancient then! All the materials to build it came ashore at Port Sloth, a beach about 500yards away. A trench was cut and the earth piled up to create a more nutrient rich raised seed bed, but far from being ‘lazy’ this was very hard work. One of the locals we spoke to in the village told us that often these sort of beds were created by sailors who came ashore and needed to provide food for themselves and didn’t want to travel far, hence the ‘lazy’. Most of the other information we have seen about them suggest the former explanation, i.e., they were a subsistence farming method used extensively from the late 1600’s.
Whoa, I need to hang on tight here before I am blown away. The rain has stopped but it is very very windy.
The cyclists all wanted to have their photo taken with their bikes and the lighthouse in the background - I guess a bit like at John O’Groats and Land’s End - if you are going to cycle to the end of somewhere then you a picture to record it. It looked especially hard to be cycling against this wind.
A walk beyond the lighthouse brings us to the cliffs where there are Fulmar and Gannet aplenty.
The rocks here are apparently some of the oldest in Europe.
Head back to the cottage along a slightly different route, passing across the interior of Lewis, which is a sparsely populated moorland. We keep our eyes peeled for birds of prey as we go - ideal habitat for some of them. No luck on bird front, but we did come across this ‘Highland Coo’ outside the Co-op in Stornaway.
Excellent sculpture.
Back in Marbhig and it turns into a pleasant evening with a colourful sunset giving us a display across the Loch from the cottage.
