Last night‘s clouds had lifted by this morning, leaving us with glorious weather and calm seas for the two and three-quarter hour crossing to Lewis. The ferry leaves from Ullapool harbour and heads out of Loch Broom and past the Summer Isles.
The good weather made for an uneventful journey, with lightly rolling seas midway across The Minch. It didn’t seem like almost 3 hours had passed by the time we edged into Stornoway harbour. My friends Graham & Hazel arrived to pick us up since we’d left the car on the mainland, and they soon whisked us off to see some of Lewis‘s many standing stones. First off was the remains of Achmore stone circle.
Next we went to see the far more impressive Ceann Hulavig stone circle, a circle of 5 tall stones above Loch Ceann Hulabhig.
We were getting ever closer to Graham & Hazel’s rented cottage on Great Bernera now. Crossing Sruth Iarsiadar onto the island, we stopped immediately over the bridge to see the Bernera Bridge standing stones.
We went back to the cottage at Valasay to drop off our bags, then made our way to the north of the island to Traigh Bostadh, a stereotypical Western Isles beach of white sand and turquoise water.
At one end of the beach the remains of a Pictish house were found in the sand dunes, and a reconstruction of what it would have been like has been made.
After several hours spent on the beach and paddling in the water, we were all getting quite peckish so we headed back up to the car and started driving back to the cottage, stopping on the way to photograph a family of Highland cows by the roadside.
