Isle of Lewis

So, as you can see from the previous post, I visited the Isle of Lewis on Monday.

This is one of the diminishing number of attractive features of my job. I sometimes get to places I haven't been to before, have a meeting with a client and then mooch around for the rest of the day waiting for the plane home.

Lewis was a nice place to mooch around.

From the air it looks bleak and desolate, a croft speckled landscape dappled with many small lochs. Apparently Lewis has about 3% of the UK land mass and 15% of its standing water. From the air I could understand this.

The difference between Lewis and Harris, actually both the same island, was quite striking. Lewis is low-lying, flat machair, covered in a thin, hard soil, which supports few trees and only the hardiest of wild plants like heather, dandelions and other ground huggers. Harris, which I only saw from a distance, was very different. Grey hump-backed mountains leered out from underneath the accumulating cloud. It looked mysterious, dark and exciting with the broiling cloud mass apparently supported by the unpronounceable monolithic mountains.

Lewis, on the other hand, remained breezy and bright. The occasional shower clattered through and, largely due to my ignorance of Gaelic, I missed my turn and continued South. Quite oblivious to my error, I ran through a landscape of peat bogs and sea lochs, many of which incisively cleaved into the landscape for some miles. Peeks of spectacular sandy beaches hinted at the glorious shore lines for which the Western Isles are renowned and it was some reluctance that I eventually realised I had made a mistake and retraced my steps to find my client.

After the meeting I visited the standing stones at Callanish. Having visited Stonehenge before I honestly believe that this is a more spectacular site. These stones are 5,000 years old and are roughly shaped in a cross with a former burial cairn at the centre of the cross. Archaeologists still debate the original purpose of the stones, but clearly they display a knowledge of the stars and it is quite likely that they are of religious, pre-christian, significance.

Callanish, like many historic sites, has that all too common 20th century appendage - a "visitor centre". In many cases this is an affliction, but in the case of Callanish it's quite a small, sympathetic and light building. Built in a curve behind a hill, and therefore out of sight of the stones, it offers a small shop and restaurant. The food was fine, although my can of Cola tasted more home made than the allegedly "home made" bread, and the shop and visitor display were nice.

A few miles north of Calanish is a fine example of an ancient broch, effectively a fortified residence used by ancient landowners. Again, this has a nice visitor centre actually built in to the hillside and it has the added nice touch of being the same shape as the broch enabling them to recreate quite authentically what life might have been like for the residents.

Still further north and I came across one of the most memorable place names I've seen for a while - Butt View. Enough said.

I cut back across to Stornoway. I'd heard before that it was a bit of a miserable place full of drink fuelled and drug addled teenagers but didn't find this to be the case. Admittedly a late Monday afternoon probably wasn't the best time to view the antics of Hebridean youth. Strangely the public toilets at the harbour appeared to be their preferred gathering place - I saw some girls there when I arrived and they were still there when I left two and a half hours later. There must be some attraction I'm missing...

I enjoyed the arts centre An Lanntair which had a display of what can only be described as Gaelic avant-garde art, a type of abstract form with extracts from Gaelic proverbs and poetry imprinted on it. The rest of the town seemed pleasant and sedate. A large and impressive castle overlooks the small inner harbour and people busied themselves about their daily duties.

The small airport sits on an isthmus separating Stornoway from Point and I sat there formulating plans for a further, longer trip to the Western Isles. I had visited Barra earlier in the year and would certainly recommend a trip travelling the length of the Western Isles. It is absolutely made for cycling.