Westward Ho.

We’ve been off travelling, overseas, to a land where temples to the sun and moon arise out of the landscape, where the natives speak an ancient tongue, where rare orchids are to be found and where there are tales of pygmy islands. A land of white sands and turquoise seas.

No, we’ve not been east of Zanzibar, more like west of Ullapool. A trip to the Outer Hebrides, to the Long Island, to Lewis to be precise, in order that LotH could recharge her Gaelic batteries and revisit youthful haunts and not-so-youthful relatives.
As the ferry approached Stornoway, we were welcomed by a pod of porpoises jumping ahead of the boat. A good omen and so it proved for the weather, so often a limiting factor on the Atlantic’s edge, stayed fair throughout our stay.
LotH enjoyed reliving her childhood all over the island, as well as doing all the tourist spots. The Callanish stones were, as usual, too crowded but we were able to soak in the atmosphere at Callanish II and III , the smaller circles in splendid solitude

Callanis II

A trip across the Bridge over the Atlantic took us to Bernera with its wild rugged scenery and spectacular beaches. The sea looked so inviting on a warm day; it was only the realisation that the waters were those of the North Atlantic and not the Caribbean that stopped us dipping a toe. LotH spied a golden eagle sitting on rock surveying us with imperious eye. And, yes, it was an eagle. We were in eagle country.

The bridge over the Atlantic

Neolithic sites, round every other corner, standing stone or chambered cairn or stone circle jostled for attention with Iron Age brochs, duns and crannogs and early Christian chapels and anchorite cells.

In between, there was time for a bit of orchid hunting. The Hebridean Spotted-orchid is native to the island but it proved elusive, hybridising as it does with other species. I think I found one but it was probably a hybrid with the Heath Spotted-orchid or with the Northern Marsh orchid which also abound on the moors and machair.

Northern Marsh, Heath - spotted, Hebridean ? Which orchid is which?


The Isle of Pygmies? Oh yes. Luchruban or Eilean na Luchrupain is a small outlier separated from the Butt of Lewis by a narrow channel and steep cliffs.

“On the sea coast about 1 mile WSW of the Butt of Lewis is a precipitous grass-covered rock, rising some 60 - 70ft above the sea, and isolated from the mainland by a deep cleft. It is known as Luchruban and has been identified with the 'Eilean na Luchrupain', or Isle of Pigmies or Little Men, recorded by Dean Munro in about 1549, and later writers. At the SE corner of the summit, which measures about 80ft - 70ft, is a building, built partly underground, which lies NE-SW and comprises an almost circular chamber about 10ft in diameter at the SW end, connected by a passage 9ft long and 2ft wide to a rectangular chamber 8ft long and 5 1/2ft wide. There is an entrance to the passage from the S, and opposite this on the other side there is a recess.” (RCAHMS
The building where the pygmies were thought to live is now regarded as yet another anchorite cell from the early Christian era like so many dotted around the island fringes, the Pabbays, Pappys, Pappas and Pabails of the western and northern isles.
Some thirty years ago, in younger fitter and, on reflection, foolhardier times, I climbed the cliffs to get on to the island. I have no idea how I managed it but I do recall a buttock tightening moment getting over the overhang on the way back.
A somewhat faded thirty year - old shot of the cell on Luchruban

Older and wiser counsel now prevailed and we viewed the island from the safety of Roinn a Roidh – the promontory of the bog myrtle (?). LotH announced that if she had known about it, I would never have made the first visit.
The weather continued to favour us but alas still neither sight nor sound of the elusive corn crake. BiL assured us that one had been calling just below the family croft and SiL had actually seen one crossing the road but, as usual, as soon as I arrive they take a vow of silence.
An expedition to find a chambered cairn on the moors aroused to proprietary instincts of a pair of Arctic skuas but at leas they weren’t as aggressive as their big cousins, the bonxies, whose ire I had aroused on previous field trips and who can really mean business when it comes to driving off intruders.

Tramping or in my case hirpling, across moors and machair made us appreciate the pleasures of the sauna and jacuzzi in our accommodation as well as the local restaurants and take-aways – Malay. Thai, Chinese, Indian, Italian and, of course, that most Scottish of cuisine, the chippie.
I wonder if there would be a market for a Hebridean restaurant serving Lewis lamb, Stornoway black pudding, tatties and salt herring, fresh mackerel, perhaps even guga in season. Guga? Oh that’s another story! Google it, if you you want to know more.
Sailing back across the Minch, expedition over and not a pith helmet or native bearer needed, it had turned out a fruitful trip in space and time.

Pushing the boat out

Conditioned as we are to the to the sea haar and the easterly winds, when the sun shines it brings out the old joie de vivre, so, on a whim, LotH and I went off down to the harbour acting the tourists and took a trip in the latest addition to the local fleet – the Glass Bottomed Boat.
As the North Sea fish stocks diminish, the fishing community are turning, in some cases reluctantly but in others eagerly, to catching a new species - the visitor. It must be a lot easier life than fighting the elements and literally risking life and limb for uncertain returns. The trawlers, prawners, crab and lobster boats have been joined or sometimes replaced, by sub aqua dive boats, sea angling boats and, now, the Glass Bottomed Boat.
LotH and I boarded from the pontoon jetty with its gently slopping ramp. Another concession to the new market, you can’t expect land lubbers to climb down harbour ladders.

An easy life

The harbour seals are so spoiled they nosed expectantly round us as we chugged out to sea. Entrepreneurial local merchants or fish cadgers as they are called, have started selling fish to the visitors to feed the seals. A win-win-win situation. The fish sellers get rid of any unwanted fish, the tourists have a great time interacting with the wild life and the seals have a pleasant superannuated existence, eating and sleeping on the rocks.
There had been word of minkes moving up and down the coast, following the mackerel but neither they, nor the porpoises were to be seen but the trip was otherwise a great success.

Gannets soared up, folding their wings and diving like arrows, kittiwakes dipped into the water like children ducking for apples, and guillemots, swimming like penguins, shot under the boat, all in search of the sand eels which seem to be plentiful again. We even saw a solitary puffin. There are only about ten breeding pairs on the Head but even this is an improvement on previous years.

The shallow draft and the expertise of the local skipper who knew every rock of his native coast, let us get close into the breeding birds on the cliffs and outliers Shags, herring gulls, razorbills, fulmars, kittiwakes, all alight, take off, sleep and breed on the crowded ledges. The gannets have their own colony further up the coast on the Bass and other islands in the Forth.

High density accomodation

Despite the absence of the big sea mammals, a pleasant way to spend an afternoon. Seeing the land from the sea is a bit like coming into a town by train rather than car, you see familiar surroundings from a different angle. It made us feel even more like holiday makers so, after disembarking, a stroll to a harbour-side restaurant for lunch seemed obligatory.
We are so quick to dash off to foreign climes we sometimes ignore what is on the doorstep.
As Wallace and Gromit would say… “ a Grand Day Out”.

Puncturing my beliefs

As soon as I straddled the usually reliable bicycle, I knew there was something amiss. The seat is never that comfortable but today it was positively attention grabbing. I had just read an article about excessive cycling as a threat to masculinity and this seemed the positive proof. A glance behind confirmed my suspicions. I had a puncture in the back tyre.
A quick whirl of the wheel revealed a tack in the tread. A curse on the local school and its poster campaign against dog fouling, Primary 3 & 4 thumbs are not up to pushing drawing pins into unyielding substrates and I had unwittingly fallen foul, if you will forgive the pun, of a stray drawing pin,
Mending a puncture is to have a Proustian moment, a remembrance of things past, like winding the clock or being able to do mental arithmetic. It took me back to school days when bicycles were just bikes not mountain bikes and had, if you were lucky, a Sturmey-Archer 3 speed gear.
It was with some trepidation, I approached the prospect of removing the rear wheel of a bike equipped with a fifteen speed derailleur “French “ gear with multiple cogs and shifts. I recalled the time when I broke the chain and, having managed to insert a new link, was faced with the prospect of re-aligning the chain and the gear wheels, especially when the aforesaid bicycle is turned upside down sitting on its seat and handlebars. A task that involved staring at the picture in the manual and then imagining it upside down and back to front.
Getting the tyre off was the first task. As far as I recalled, this used to involve a pal and two spoons filched from the kitchen drawer, the bent handles of which had to be explained afterwards to an irate parent of the female persuasion. There were no pals or spoons available so a couple of flat keys and a lot of cursing sufficed. Then the ritual of pumping up of the punctured tube, the immersion in a basin of water to find the tell-tale bubbles, the little yellow crayon to mark the hole, a sandpaper strip to roughen the surface, the rubber solution, peeling the backing of the patch, sticking it on and then, grating the French chalk over the patch to stop it adhering to the tyre, then the struggle to replace the tyre and the satisfying “plop” as it fits back onto the wheel.
There is something very satisfying about mending a puncture. In an age when cars are computerised mysteries and all electrical appliances are cheaper to bin than to repair, mending a puncture takes you back to youth, to “the blue remembered hills…. where I went and cannot come again” .
Once, in discussion about age, we concluded that once you were unable to do a cartwheel or climb a tree, you were old or, at least, no longer young. It is a couple of years since I, for a dare, performed a sort of cartwheel and as long since I climbed a tree but, yesterday, I mended a puncture.