Two weeks in The Western Isles – Barra to the Butt

July 22, 2016

Barra

Wind, Sea and Vatersay
- New road across from Barra. But there in LR’s time
  - EU supported
Kisimil castle – right in the middle of Castlebay
- Get there by boat
- Lovely restored wee castle of the MacNeils
Kisimil restaurant
- Not to be missed – need to book
Weather had been bad on first day and in the North saw three Twin Otters land within the hour the next
- You might appreciate
- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/21/antarctica-polar-rescue-planes-medical-emergency

South Uist

Music Summer school
http://www.ceolas.co.uk/summer/
Ceilidh
Two young accordionists
Patsy Reid- excellent Scottish Fiddle Player
- Did not play much at the evening we attended but she may have continued later
- Tutor in Fiddle
Step dancing – people just got up one by one and danced
Mountains all down the East Coast
Machair on the West
- glorious flower drenched in the sun

North Uist

Balranald RSPB reserve
- Otters but we never saw it
- Oystercatchers in profusion, ringed plovers, dunlins

South Harris

Across sound of Harris
- large number of shoals – careful navigation!
Rodel
- St Clement’s church
  - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Clement%27s_Church,_Rodel
    - Alasdair Crotach’s wall tomb

Golden Road
- Built in 1937 – so called as so costly to build
  - Must have been recently rebuilt
- Harris Tweed shops and museum
- Community café – excellent
Coffin Road
- Ground too hard to bury dead in East
- More likely because people wished to bury their dead in the cemeteries of ancestors, which were on west
  - People evicted from Seilebost in west to stony, poor ground in the east
- Excellent walk over bealach
  - resurfaced

Lewis

Lewis is flat
Old Village at the end of the road, Orasaigh
Ravenspoint museum
- Unbelievable collection of old documents and photos off South Lewis
Callanish – stones fabulous
- Callanish 1 2 3 etc
Black houses occupied till 1940
- https://www.historicenvironment.scot/visit-a-place/places/the-blackhouse-arnol/
Harris tweed made largely in Lewis
- Calloway loom – Hattersley 60 inch now out of production
  - Complex to set up
  - To be classed as Harris tweed it must be woven at home
- Norman Mackenzie
  - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwMShekOvqQ
- Isle of Berneray
- Good walk
- Iron Age House
Uig
- Mangersta
  - Remember Linda Norgrove – the funeral
    - Find out about the Linda Norgrove Foundation
      - http://www.lindanorgrovefoundation.org
  - Delightful sign post ‘This way, that way, the other way’
- Restaurant
- Glen Bhaltois – geology
Butt of Lewis
- Birds
  - Gannets diving, fulmars nesting, kittiwakes, shags fishing and nesting, terns, ravens
  - Fulmars unbelievable fliers when close to cliffs
- Lighthouse
- St Moluag’s Church
- Crofts not being crofted
Pol’s Pantry
- Excellent food
  - Chef saved a buzzard caught in barred wire

General

Roads of good quality and surface
Communities very much on the move
Plant trees, protect them and they grow
Difficulty of cash machines – then we find them in Post Offices but they close at 5pm
Great that CalMac kept the Western Isles Ferry contract
For a better travelogue with people read Lesley Riddoch – On the Outer Hebrides

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