Isle of Lewis

Written by Yves

Day 8: Sunday

Walk from Gearannan to Dail Mor.

The path starts by climbing the cliff above Gearannan, the black house village.

At the top, the ground is extremely rocky. Amongst the rock, you can find many little streams and pools.

The ground isn't too stable, it's quite boggy and there are many little streams that we have to avoid. Narelle still managed to cross one of the biggest ones though!

This path follows the coast. Most of it is high cliffs overlooking reefs. On the way we cross a couple of dead sheep. Dead sheep make for a strange sight, as the meat disappears after a while, while the skin and the whool seem to resist predators and the weather much longer. As a result, you are left with a skeleton and an empty skin, pretty much as if the sheep had melted away.

We stopped for lunch on the way. It was very windy, some strawberries escaped. Maybe we planted some strawberry plants

Arriving on Dail Mor, you can see the beach protected inside the cliff.

All over the island, old paths are marked with cairns. This one was actually covered in moss, proof it must have been there for a long, long time!

Coming back from Dail Mor on the road, the sun is playing up on the hills.

Weather ranging from some sun and overcast to rain. Met a little old guy with no teeth, very hard to understand. Unless he was in fact speaking Gaelic?

Day 9: Monday

Woke up this morning, it is sunny! Oh no! What are we going to do?

Went up to Port of Ness, walked along the dune of Traigh. There is a dead seal there, strangled by fishing ropes and plastic; the high tide line was covered in plastic debris; all this maybe from the wreck of a Norwegian fishing boat we heard about, last week. Yet, the beach is very large, sandy white, beautiful...

Beaches in Lewis are very large, and very, very underpopulated. Traigh is about 2 miles long, and we can see two other people right at the other side. Soon they disappear, leaving us alone on that heavenly beach (if it wasn't for the temperature of the water.) Our footprints are the only one on the sand.