Thursday morning dawned fairly wet as it had been overnight, Barry collected the hire car around 10am …. a white VW UP! Small but perfectly formed for what we wanted, Ruth packed herself some food for lunch and then we set off, initially going south until we picked up the road West towards Bosta, as the lady in the Harbour office had recommended visiting the Iron Age Village.
The roads on Lewis/Harris are well kept, but best described as narrow, narrower and even narrower ….. although with regularly spaced ‘passing places’ to facilitate two way traffic!
We eventually got to a real narrow and steep part, Ruth not impressed with the road side steep drop offs, before arriving at a small car park next to the beach and iron age village ……. only to find a 52 seater coach parked there having deposited its ‘cargo’ from the Queen Victoria cruise liner parked in Stornoway outer harbour ….. my hat gets taken off to these professional drivers, able to drive something that big down these silly country roads!
The beach looked lovely, golden sand and calm sea,
the village had been uncovered a few years ago after a storm, they had excavated along with archaeologists and then backfilled to preserve what was there just leaving the one ‘villa’ for the masses to view.
We then drove a short distance to a Community Hall, which operates as a cafe, nice lunch! After, we then drove on further west to an area called Miavaig, again another fabulous beach and spectacular scenery, although the low cloud was trying to spoil things …… we feel extremely privileged to have experienced these areas.
We then drove back towards where we left the ‘main’ road and visited the ‘standing stones’ at Callanish
…… another spectacular site, before it was off to the Blackhouse Village at Gearrannan, the man operating the Harris Tweed loom was a wealth of information!
Heading north by now, we stopped for a brew & cake at a lovely cafe as part of an art gallery, then north again to Port Nis and eventually the Bute of Lewis, where we were greeted by rain!
Eventually getting back to SW around 6pm, showers & dinner was all we wanted! A fabulous day out doing ‘culture ‘! Roll on tomorrow!
Summer Wine Sailing 