May 25th

It was a quiet day at the campsite on Harris. The wind was howling and the rain was coming down, so we decided it was a good catch up day for Guy and his painting. He is under a bit of a time limit as his bucket list states, “ I’ll shall do 10 paintings on the Outer Hebrides”.

I caught up on my blog and did a bit of laundry and reading.

The Hebrides islands are known for their tumultuous weather with being right on the North Atlantic. Now as I write, it’s blazing sunshine through the clouds and it looks promising. But give it a minute and we will likely be back to rain and wind and then sun again.

It was just us and the sheep today at the campsite.

Just an observation, above our campsite is a windmill. It is super windy and it hasn’t moved since we got there. I may climb up to the top with some WD40 and fix it. 😂

May 26th

We left our campsite by 9 to drive north up to Lewis to see the Callanish Stones and Gearrannan Blackhouse Cottages. The scenery on the way up was stunning. The mountains got bigger (Hebrides standards) and more dramatic on North Harris and into Lewis.

The Callanish Standing stones are 5000 years old, older than Stone Henge. Rituals were held there for 2000 years. As well, it may have acted as an “astronomical observatory” when the low moons light hit the stones every 18.6 years. (www.historicenvironment.scot/visit-a-place/places/calanais-standing-stones/). On this day, the skies offered a great backdrop to highlight the stones.

After the stones, we motored along to Gearrannan Blackhouse Cottages. Enroute, I took pictures of the countryside and old houses that Guy is intrigued by.

The cottages at Gearrannan were crofter cottages, built in the late 1800’s and inhabited until 1974. They are called black cottages because they are made out of turf and stone, with very thick and sturdy walls, and thatched roofs. This type of building was very common in days of old.

At the museum, we learned about the weaving of Harris tweed, how peat is harvested and dried for fuel, the lifestyle of crofters and their challenges over the years. For those that don’t know, a croft is :

“a traditional Scottish term for a fenced or enclosed area of land, usually small and arable, and usually, but not always, with a crofter’s dwelling thereon. A crofter is one who has tenure and use of the land, typically as a tenant farmer, especially in rural areas”. (Wikipedia).

Crofts received special legislation in 1886 after the Highland Clearances from 1750 to 1860 when highlanders were evicted off their lands, land often worked by their families for generations. It destroyed a way of life and the rich culture that went with this life. Many people from the clearances immigrated to Canada, America and Australia and New Zealand.

We went into the cottages and they felt so solid. It was a very windy day and you could feel no trace of the wind inside. Each cottage had two chimneys for cozy heat all around. One had a peat fire burning in the fireplace when we were there. I was tempted to put the kettle on and settle in next to the fire.

In 1989, Urras nan Gearrannan or Garenin Trust, (named after the township the cottages are in) took them over and have been working at restoring them since. You can rent out one of the cottages for a vacation, a good fundraising measure to enable them to carry on the restoration and upkeep.

After visiting the Black Cottages, we headed north and then east down to Stornaway. We did a bit of shopping and drove the one hour back to the campsite in Harris.

We got back to the campsite around 6:30 pm for another blustery and rainy evening.

May 27th

Guy painted in the morning. I went and checked out some art galleries nearby and then had another walk up MacLeod’s Stone. It was fabulous to be up there in the wind and sun on my own.

In the afternoon, when the sun came out, we drove out to Luskentyre Beach. It has been voted one of the best beaches in the UK. The road out to the beach is a one track with lots of pull outs, in a very beautiful pastoral setting hugging the edge of a lake. The white sanded beach goes for miles and the day we were there, the ocean was a beautiful blue that reminded us of warm weather holiday places we have been.

It was a lovely sunny walk on the beach. Now back at the campsite, the winds are roaring and there is intermittent heavy rain. I commented about the rain to another camper earlier in the day and she said, “What? This is good weather.” And her husband chimed in, “You don’t come to Scotland for the sunshine.” You got that right!

We are spoiled. We had such a long run of sunshine. Looking back, we landed in London on February 28th to sunshine and it was mostly that until just after our time in Glasgow around May 17th, except for a blip in Wales in Bala back in April.

Our time in the UK and Ireland is moving along. We go back to Uist (still Outer Hebrides) tomorrow for one night before heading back to Skye (Inner Hebrides) for two days. The following day, we start working our way north up the west coast of mainland Scotland.