Blogs from Stornoway, Outer Hebrides, Scotland, United Kingdom, Europe - page 2

Sunday 22nd June - evening Arrive in Skye with no plans. Drove 13 miles down single lane to Elgol. Gorgeous harbour. Went for walk, climbing over rocks on beach. Dead end road. On way back, parked up by Loch Slapin for our first night of wild camping. Monday 23rd June Woken up at 5am by a sheep using van as a scratch post. Set off planning to stop at Broadford, second largest village on island but nothing really there. At Sligachan we wandered along pretty stream and made statues out of the rocks/stones. Moe had to keep redoing his as his competitive streak meant he had to make the tallest. Carried on to Neist Point, furthest point west on Skye. Unfortunately, the cloud had closed in on us and couldn't see lighthouse. Stayed for lunch but ... read more

Today began early with a quuck trip to the supermarket to get goodies for our picnic lunch later at the butt of Lewis, Scotland's most northern point and most windy! We started at the Calanais standing stones which are even older than stone henge! They stand 7m tall and the top part of them have been uncovered by archeologists, although they really have no idea what their meaning is. Poor Ann had a pretty major stack at this point and fell over in the mud, I think it was Natasha who then followed suit and we had some wet and muddy seats on the bus :-(. We then visited DunCarloway which is a place that the highlanders used to live. They had an outer and inner wall for warmth - and by jolly you need it ... read more

This isn't the first time I've done the trip north to the Isle of Lewis from my home in Brittany France, so you might ask what keeps on pulling me back there. It was in May 2005 when I'd made curtains for my car, packed a trangia stove, oil paints, sketch pads and most importantly picked up my fathers ashes from Cornwall. I was brought up on the Mull of Kintyre and this was the first time back since 1961. I was about to go Island hopping and had bought a Caledonian MacBrayne ticket starting with the crossing to Arran. I had spent six years of my youth staring across the Kilbrannan Sound to the sothern most tip of Arran but had never been over as my parents always took the long way round via Inverary ... read more