Day 7, 8 and 9 Exploring Stornoway and Lewis

Out last couple of days were spent exploring Stornoway and Lews with the Douglas’s in their big comfortable car. We saw Lewis Castle on our own on Saturday and on Sunday Ian drove us over to Uig and another huge expanse of sand. The wind was down, and the rain stayed away which was a blessing! We flew out of Stornoway in the early afternoon, back to Edinburgh.

Hilary and Ian’s beautiful house

The Hebridean humour! There was water coming out of the bottle

We saw some of these but not too many. Going closely past one in car or on bike was a little scary.

The Wee Shop

Dalmore beach

Ian and Howard and Ruaridh

The house and the beach from the top of the hill

A carving of one of the Lewis chessmen, in Uig. Legend has it there are more to be found! 

The wind was down - a bit! 

The Callanish Stones - we will come back and see them close up another time

Look at the folding in the rock

There were sheep everywhere

Dalmore Beach

Hilary and Ruaridh

Things we noted but haven’t mentioned:

1) Cuckoos: We heard cuckoos every day! Who knew that the Outer Hebrides was home to a large number of them! And I saw at least one of them

2) Corncrakes: these are rare and getting rarer. We often heard them growing up in Shapinsay and I knew that the Outer Hebrides was likely to have them too. I heard one only twice, sadly.

3) We also saw an eagle being mobbed by crows.

4)  The complete route was 185 miles although we probably did a little more. Here the complete route with our stops:

4) Here is the route in profile. The highest part was the huge hill after Tarbert.