Lewis and Harris
and other places on the way there and back.
So finally, we got a break, a proper break in which we could leave behind the ties that bind and head north to the Outer Hebrides. We had wanted to go back since we were in Uist in July 2022, and loved the place. This time, we were in Garaidh, our T6 camper van, and so had the flexibility to cope with trying to negotiate the ferries at short notice when the Mod is on.
In Scotland, they say if you don’t like the weather, just wait. It’s true enough, and if we had wanted boring moisture-free predictability we would have gone to Dubai. It would be churlish to be ungrateful for the weather, whatever it is, especially as there are plenty of reasons to be cheerful about it. One reason on this trip was that we were late enough in the year to have missed the midgies. I’ll take rain and mist over the midgies, thanks. I’d probably take fire and brimstone over the midgies, actually. It being such a long drive from home on the Forth to our ferry from northern Skye, we planned to spend the first night on the way up in the van. We rolled into Caolasnacon in Glen Coe and were soon enjoying a romantic butter chicken microwaved dinner, serenaded by stags in the hills all around us as golden eagles soared in the skies above.
The stags were still there in the morning, along with the mist rolling off the slopes, as we packed up and took a leisurely drive, stopping for lunch at Glen Garry and then just once or twice to pap images along the way. The late autumn colours at Glen Shiel were irresistible, just popping all around us as we drove through. I love this stretch beyond Glen Moriston along the A87 towards Shiel Bridge.
We were in plenty of time for the ferry from Uig to Tarbert and a pretty decent scampi and chips on board. Our accomodation for the week was just 10 minutes from the terminal at Tarbert. Tor Cottage at Carrigreich is one of those Scandi-Heb type of houses you’ll have seen on the telly. Ours is next door to that one. We were met by the host who had laid a fire in the log-burner and saw that we were comfortable.
Sunday morning, a lazy start and a fry-up as we took stock of the situation. 8 okta with some texture in the sky in the east. Good enough to get out and walk along Rosamol beach, one of three that lie on the estuarine bay with Luskentyre and Seilebost beaches. We explored the wide, sandy estuary as far as the river (Abhainn Losgaintir) before turning back along the strand and over the dunes. As the cold front approached, rainbows threatened.
On Monday, we took a quick walk along the well-maintained pathway to Eilean Glas Lighthouse on Scalpay, a little over 2 km to the lighthouse. The southern pathway is signposted as just a little longer but we soon discovered that it is neither well-marked nor so easily traversed, and needs good boots and navigation capability. The ground is boggy and perfidious, as I discovered, ending up deeper than I was comfortable with in a peaty hole. We were welcomed back at the car by a charming local man who was gracious in agreeing that the second part of the loop is awful in comparison with the first. Never mind, there was time to stop at Tor Cottage for a change on the way through to Tarbert for a coffee and very nice sausage roll from the Deli.
The local gentleman on Scalpay and the Tarbert Deli affirmed our perception that there are great things to discover about Hebridean hospitality and kindness, which is easy to miss if you are informed by tourist places like the distillery which can seem overreaching, if not exploitative. It depends what triggers you, I suppose, and whilst I am less tempted by gin, stationery and art materials are hard for me to resist. I am now the proud owner of not one but two beautiful Harris Tweed pencil cases which cost me what? About the price of a bottle of Harris gin, actually.
The Hebrides, like much of Scotland, enjoys a mix of cultural heritage, pretentious nouveau-riche building design, rural chaos and brutalist architectural misery in its built environment. There remains, often just the remains, a wistful presentation in places. Some of the roadside caravans are actually shops – we stopped at the Isle Coffee Harris mobile coffee van, which recently returned home to the Hebrides after a run-in with Edinburgh City Council. That’s Edinburgh’s loss, unfortunately, and Harris visitors’ gain.
The coffee is excellent, and the brownies are some of the best you will ever taste. Like many of the small island businesses, you have to keep an eye on their socials (and a pinch of salt for what you might read on their websites) to avoid a wasted trip. Community features strongly in small places, too, and the Talla na Mara is a genuinely outstanding idea – it’s a super viewpoint over Niseaboist Beach, a café, a gallery and community space, and the site of several studios. It is owned and run by the West Harris Trust for local residents and is a really delightful place. We returned a number of times in our short trip to catch the artists and for food. Other community stances exist around Harris in the honesty shops (often just a box by the road) that sell local produce – we bought mustard and the most incredible food; how about a langoustine buttery, or a chocolate orange buttery with chantilly cream? I can hear you packing, but make sure you take cash with you. Some of these can take electronic payments but it is easier and more wholesome, surely, to pay with cash so the shop gets to keep all of the money?
Community features in the Harris Tweed brand, also, and there are statutory rules that govern the use of the Harris Tweed Orb mark, which include the requirement that the fabric itself must be woven in the producer’s own home from local wool. There are variations in the quality of what you buy, so take care to check not only the presence of the Harris Tweed mark, sewn in to the thing itself, but also the maker’s tag. We visited a couple of the shops and enjoyed buying from the hands that made the fabric.
On Wednesday we ate our butteries for lunch at Husinis beach before taking a walk through the dunes to a jetty from where you can look on to Scarp, the little island in the Atlantic opposite Loch Reasort. We drove on to Lewis, Eng to the Chang of Harris, conjoined along an imprecise line drawn between Loch Reasort and Loch Shìophoirt. The landscape driving northward is quite different from the Moonscape of Harris around Tarbert. I was calmed by the sight of trees – it’s funny what you miss when it’s not there any more. We stopped for a break on the way back to the cottage to take the lovely boardwalk trail at Aline Community Woodland, another great example of successful community stewardship.
Wednesday evening we reviewed and processed our photos, variably pleased or frustrated with the results, as ever. Photography, and especially drone photography, are infrequent hobbies and we have to remind ourselves of forgotten settings and workflows. I find that confidence in these things improves with a glass of red. For new readers, Kara and I both tend to shoot Fuji digital – Kara an X-T20 and X-H1, whereas I use an X-T2 for the long lens and an X-T5 for wider angle and portrait lenses. We process with Capture One Pro software.
The next day, we were back at Talla na Mara for coffee and a scone and a return to Seilebost and Horgabost beaches. I actually think I prefer beaches in the mist and rain – they are more beautiful than in the vulgarity of raw sunlight. Parts of Harris over Leverburgh are formed of the same rock brought back from the Moon by the Apollo mission, and so I wonder if what you see in the landscape here is what the Moon might look like if it had an atmosphere – moss and marsh, bog and small creatures in the heather.
We bought a small polished rock at the Gneiss Things studio before heading back to Tarbert to visit Isle of Harris Tweed and stick some logs on the fire. This was our last night. There were surprises in store, yet, however, as the clouds cleared and we were granted an unexpected astrophotography session.
So Friday was to be our last daytime adventure on the Isle of Harris, starting as it should, perhaps, with gin. We did a little shopping at the distillery before spotting an eagle on the road to Seilebost. A local in a white van pulled in to the layby to tell us about the eagles and the best place to see them feeding on the seal pups (we didn’t have time, anyway, though). It was nice to hear a good local accent, if I am honest, because a lot of the local businesses are owned and operated by English migrants, even the tweed producers. I don’t know what I feel about that, as an English economic migrant to Scotland myself, but I am always delighted to hear the right soundtrack to the movie, aren’t you?
The North Harbour Bistro was fully booked, so we took a better option and went to Talla na Mara for a last-time-on-this-trip lunch before catching our ride back to Skye. The journey was super, even if the steak pie wasn’t. We were second off the ferry, stopping in Portree to refuel and pick up some things at the awesome Co-Op before driving on to Glenbrittle along not the worst road in Scotland, but certainly one of the finalists. Arriving in the dark we had a windy night with the sound of waves off the loch just fifty metres away.
We awoke on our anniversary to the Small Isles on one side and the Cuillins on the other, with fresh croissants and coffee from the site café. Good enough to get us started on the trip home, back up the road with the advantage of being able to see it properly. We stopped for a walk up to the Fairy Pools as a kind of “us” thing to do our anniversary.
Arriving back at Caolsnacon in Glen Coe for the last night of our adventure we were met by a grazing stag. Very twee, like the Chocolates of Glenshiel we bought on the way down. We scoffed pasta, wine and some of the chocolate as the wind whipped up, enough to drop the pop top and stick the diesel heater on for a bit. The howling of the wind was foreboding but we felt safe in Garaidh with his lid down, rocked gently beside the shore of Loch Leven. Idyllic and lovely in the daylight but a bit more menacing when we had to walk past the stag who was still standing his ground between the van and the ablution block. The night passed peacefully enough, however, and we drank tea and Hebridean coffee in the morning before packing up and continuing our route home, stopping where the landscape demanded it.
Sunday was a long day, in a good way. There’s nothing like a great road trip and Scotland offers endless opportunities with each shift in the weather that shapes and colours the incredible landscape. As well as pausing in Glen Coe, we turned off the road to follow the river Etive down to a safe place for a light lunch of cheese, grapes and biscuits.
A final stop at the Green Welly at Tyndrum to buy coffee and some tourist tat. It has been raining more steadily as we journey home but the sausages are out of the freezer and a nice bath awaits us when we get home. How lucky we are to be able to fill our lives with such love and happy times.
