After a couple of days exploring Huishinis Bay on Harris, we headed North onto the Isle of Lewis. Unlike the names suggest, they are not two separate Islands and you could easily miss the sign to say you have crossed over to Lewis.
First up was a stop in Tarbert, where the Harris Gin Distillery is based. It is my absolute favourite gin. Who knew that Sea Kelp could make such a difference to the taste, I particularly enjoyed the tasting session as she explained the distilling process and botanicals. We left having bought several bottles - the start of our Christmas present purchases.
Next we spent an hour sat in the van trying to get an update on what was happening with the house - seemingly sod all! We are at the mercy of a solicitor who is not ours and Land Registry, which like all government agencies at the moment, are about a year behind on everything. We have been here before recently with Marks probate drama. The upshot was that we still can’t have a completion date as the sellers solicitor had not registered the change in the plot until a couple of weeks ago. We are now 5 months into the purchase and still houseless.
All admin done for the day and a YouTube upload later, we were headed to a our first destination, a beach called Bosta which is around 7 miles drive into the Bernera peninsula. We were quite fascinated by the petrol station that we came across in the middle of nowhere with cheaper petrol than where we lived in Cheshire! We arrived in the rain as dusk was approaching, the only highlight being the two highland cows that we passed. On nights like these we tend to hunker down and take our time cooking, our feast of choice was paella, pure comfort food. We were expecting rain all evening, but the weather Gods gave us a window to get down onto the beach in the dark under the moonlight, we had a window of stillness and our eyes soon adjusted to the dark. You will have all heard the term, the calm before the storm - well this was it! We’re were tucked up in bed by 9.30 just as the heavens opened and the wind blew up a Hoolie. The van was blasted by huge gusts for a good few hours, rocking quite violently. It was like trying to sleep in a tin can with the rain lashing down, I gave up at midnight and read for a couple of hours.
After a restless night, we woke up to a much better morning so we headed back down to the beach for a wander. There was a strange structure on the shore line that after a little research we found to be called the time and tide Bell. It was high tide at this point and the bell was half submerged. At the far end of the beach we spotted a path that led to a replica Iron Age dwelling, there is a museum there that is open in the summer. Looking down from the dunes, you could also spot the footings of three other dwellings that had been unearthed. The weather was still a little damp so we decided we would move on to the next peninsula along the coast.
Our next stop was Reef Beach, more commonly known to the locals as ‘Traigh na Beirigh’. It is the most stunning beach with wide expanses of white sand and aquamarine blue sea for miles, made even more special by the fact that we had it to ourselves if you don’t count the sheep!
We had been given a tip off by a local that as well as the incredible beach at Reef, there was a hidden cove about a kilometre walk around the cliffs that had spectacular views for photography. It has to be said that we are not great at following directions so we did a slight detour before we found the beach, but wow was it worth it. From the higher vantage point on the cliff tops, the land scape on this side of the peninsula was more rugged and the white sand beneath the sea at high tide gave the sea an ethereal glow, shimmering in the sunlight. The photo’s we took did not really do it justice.
There is a campsite with direct access to the beach that opens May to September with basic facilities but as it was now November we found a quiet park-up tucked away near the dunes for the night. It was with much excitement that I found the public toilet at the beach also had a shower. It is not a facility for the faint hearted, as Richard put it - a basic, cleanish, functional yet warm shower akin to the 1970’s school showers!
The weather had really bucked up so we decided to take our fire pit down to the beach for the evening. We found a sheltered spot and spent a couple of hours watching the sky change colours and the moon rise before finally stumbling our way back to the van in the dark.
The next morning, the weather was still fine and Richard had spotted a cross on the hill behind us, armed with a camera and a waterproof layer (just in case) we set of on another hike. It soon became clear that there was no direct access to the hilltop as there was a deep and wide bog between us and it! There was however a ridge line we could follow, the short walk we thought turned out to be 6km but the fabulous views made it worth while. I’m just going to put it out there, I was glad I had found the time to get some wellies before we set off on this trip - Richard had not!
It was not a long journey to our next destination, just 2km around the corner was Cliff beach. We had stayed here on our previous trip in the summer months and enjoyed boogie boarding in the surf. It is a narrower bay which is popular with local surfers as the waves are much wilder here. Our park up for the night was on the Cliff tops which has a carpark that has an honesty box - just £5 a night. The views again were spectacular and again the only company we had were the dozens of sheep that used our van as a wind block and scratching post. Still on a mission to do 400k steps a month, we set off on another cliff top walk. It was certainly wild and breezy!
The weather forecast for the next day was not good, this is when we take our opportunities to do the longer transfer drives. We wanted to visit Uig bay and another local had tipped us off that we should not leave the area without visiting Mangersta beach. One thing we have found travelling out of season was how friendly the locals are. We have spoken to so many people out and about who have gladly shared places to visit and stories about the local area. Both beaches were quite spectacular, however it was wild, wet and windy so we didn’t hang around too much.
Dotted around the area we came across several large wooden chess piece sculptures, carved in oak. They are large scale replicas of the Uig chessmen - based on the walrus ivory chess pieces found locally in 1831. Historians believe the original collection were made in Norway in the 12th century.
We also found a well stocked community shop so we filled the van with supplies and headed north again.
We wanted to time a visit to the ancient Callinish standing stone circle for around sunset, hoping we would get some nice photo’s. With the stones to ourselves and a rainbow arched over them, we felt totally spoilt.
It was a long day travelling around and we were glad to reach our final destination for the night -Shawbost. We had seen signs for fish and chips take away, sadly when we got there it was closed so we had to make do with warmed up chilli and Nacho’s. We even treated ourselves to a bottle of wine. It was another clear night, the stars were bright and the near full moon was reflected across the loch. Another perfect night.
We woke up the next morning to a cold, wet and windy Sunday. We set off to explore the Blackhouse village at Gearrannan. We were lucky to catch a 10 minute break in the weather to walk down and have a look around. As with all things on the islands on a Sunday, the museum was closed but you could have a good explore around the outside. The buildings had been restored as to how historians thought they would have been originally and some of the houses are available rental holiday accommodation.
As we were half way up the Isle of Lewis, we decided to visit Stornoway in the vague hope that we would find a cafe or pub open to have a coffee in the warm and dry. We needed to charge our lap tops and find a strong enough wifi signal to upload our latest blog and YouTube video. Arriving at 11am, there was not a single place open, not even the public loos! Even the large Tesco store was closed! Eventually we found a toilet open at the ferry terminal but gave up on the coffee and carried on heading North.
Many of the more hidden places that we find on our travels through Scotland are from suggestions in the 'Wild Scotland' book. We are quite nerdy and highlight all the places we have visited in the book. As we have been on the Island previously, there are only a few places left to find, and the 'Bridge to Nowhere' and 'Traigh Mhor beach' were 2 of them. Both found North of Stornoway, so off we set in the rain again. The bridge was literally a mile North of the end of the highway with the Heritage trail leading off from it. It was built in 1921 by Lord Leverhulme who wanted to connect Tolsta and the Butt of Lewis with a road around the North of the Island, the bridge was built, the road was not.
The carpark to the bridge also gave us access to Garry beach which we had fun exploring between the downpours. It was low tide which gave us an opportunity to explore the caves and stacks that littered the beach. around the corner was the even more magnificent Tragic Mhor beach, which was miles long.
At this point we had been on the islands for a week and decided that it was time to head back down to the Isle of Harris as we were desperate to return to the tropical white sandy beaches. Although we had only booked a one way ticket, we had no idea when we would need to return to mainland and complete on our new house in the Yorkshire Dales, speaking to the solicitors before the weekend, it didn't seem that it would be any time soon.
That's it for another week of our travel blog and our life living in Nelson the campervan. Next week we explore the stunning beaches on Harris and find the Eilean Glass Lighthouse on the Isle of Scalpay.
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