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squiz Member Member#: 6644 Location: Registered: 27-05-2007 Diary Entries: 2888 |
11th July 2013 Hiking - Walking: ‘Bridge to nowhere’ Lewis Wind Direction: Wind Stength: Surf / Sea State: Air Temperature: Sea Temperature: Weather: sunny periods Max Speed: Distance Covered: Thursday 11th July – walk **** ‘Bridge to nowhere’ - sunny periods Woke up to a light mist and several midges! No hot drink this morning as no gas! After covering ourselves in repellent had breakfast outside too. Drove up to Stornaway which is the biggest town on the islands and quite a shock after the deserted places we have been to. We passed a huge co-op and called at the garage nearby to see if they had gas – they did but not the size we need! Luckily the man in the garage told us how to get to their supplier who would have that size in stock. We found it straight away – just like going into a builders merchant at home which felt very weird! Back to the Co-op where we had a good stock up – hopefully enough to last until we leave on Monday, no reduced bargains like in the small co-ops:( We parked at the harbour and had a cuppa – caffeine withdrawals!!! Fish bits were being thrown over the side of a trawler and two seals and some gulls were loving it. The seals were really funny – virtually begging and jumping out of the water. By the time we walked round the harbour they were obviously stuffed and just lazily flapping their flippers and blowing bubbles. There was a nice castle over the inlet but other than that Stornaway wasn’t really our cup of tea. We later met the family we had been in the eagle observatory with a few days ago and the Dad said the only good thing about Stornaway is the road out and that pretty much says it all! We drove out to Garry beach originally just to have lunch but it was so lovely we stayed all day and are parked up for the night. This is where the ‘bridge to nowhere’ is. The bridge, built in 1920 was the brainchild of Lord Leverhume who wanted a road to go all the way up to the north of the island but it never happened, so there is just the bridge and a mile or so of track. After lunch (where we got the chairs out!! Yes, we have officially become old fogies – we even had the plastic plates out!) we walked over the bridge and up the track. This is where we met the family mentioned above and the very nice teenage daughter said she thought she had seen a dolphin out in the bay. The water was like glass and we spotted several dolphins straight away. We sat on some rocks and watched them for what must have been over an hour! It was really great. There were all the sea birds we have seen on this holiday so far sitting out on the water or flying by. We walked to the small concrete bridge – the roads end and then back to the van eventually and had a cuppa and some cake then walked down on the beach before the tide came up too high to explore. This is now officially our favourite beach – so many great things so we will list them: • There is a lake covered with white water lilies with grey lag geese and their babies swimming on it. • There is white sand and turquoise, clear sea. • There are rock stacks on the right hand side of the bay. • There is a cave which you can walk into that opens out onto the sea. • There are flowers growing out of the rocks. • There is a little stream coming down the side of the hills and out on the beach. • When you have crossed the beach and are the wrong side of the stream there is a little bridge to bring you back to the car park. • Then the great walk up to the bridge and track with dolphins and birds as above :) • Surrounded by hilly moorland which must look spectacular when the heather is in flower. • And the Sun was out!!! • We are parked up the road overlooking the whole thing. Beautiful :) Back to the van for tea and cards – with the net across the door because there are rather a lot of midges and horse flies!!! Friday 12th July – travelling/sightseeing :( cloudy The day started with glorious sunshine and blue skies. Got up early and went down to the beach - Beautiful. Went back to the van and had our breakfast sitting outside. Good job we made the most of it because really black clouds came in and that was basically it for the day :( We left our lovely spot (shame about the flies – bitten to pieces!) and drove towards The butt of Lewis Lighthouse. We stopped on the way to see the biggest standing stone in Scotland – The Trussel stone. We ate our lunch just underneath the lighthouse and it poured with rain for a little while. We watched the gulls nesting on the rocks opposite and the young gulls learning to fly. Had a quick walk before moving on. Unfortunately things went a bit pear shaped for the rest of the day and we ended up doing 167 miles! We wanted to go to the Broch and standing stones on the West side of the islands but they will have to wait until another day because we suddenly realised we were very low on diesel we had to go out of our way to a garage and fill up. We did drop in and have a look at the Blackhouse cottages, a village of old cottages which have been renovated and turned into a living museum. You had to pay to get in but I took photos from up on the cliff and managed to walk back through the main street right past them anyway! After we got the diesel we met the couple we walked with on our trip to the Lighthouse on Scalpay – out on their bikes miles from anywhere again:) We drove to the island of Bernera, visited the beach at Bostah and saw the Iron Age house. A whole iron age village appeared when the beach was eroded in the 1990s so they have made a replica but there is no sign of the ones they found. We could have parked there for the night but it didn’t feel right somehow so we drove along every road on Bernara with no joy and moved on towards Uig and eventually found a beach to park at around 8.30. We had both completely had enough by then and if it wasn’t for the fact we had had such a brilliant start at the Garry beach and saw 3 eagles and 3 deer later in the day we would have had a poor day all round! If the weather had behaved itself we would have stayed at the Garry Beach and got the canoe out to go and find a dolphin! We are ready to go home now – oh and it’s raining again!!! Saturday 13th July – sightseeing – cloudy and cold :( Still miserable weather (getting boring to read now I know!) Very dark cloud and chilly. Had breakfast then packed up. Drove to Uist beach and on to the road beyond Brenish which is basically as far as you can go on this side of the island. There was a very interesting looking headland so we parked and walked onto that. There was a fantastic V in the rocks where fulmars were both nesting and flying into and out of for fun! It looked like the females were sitting on their young in the nest (we got some lovely views of fluffy white babies) and the males were just cruising and having fun. I had a good half an hour or more taking photos – trying to catch them in flight – not an easy job! Drove back to Uig beach (stopping for a photo with the giant carved Chess piece King) to eat lunch – couldn’t see the sea at all – just a massive expanse of sand. After a read and rest we used the facilities to fill up with water and drove back along the roads we were on yesterday but missing out the island! Our first stop was at the famous standing stones at Callinish which have to be the most amazing ones we have seen to date. They are very tall, beautifully marked rock pillars in a definite circle with a narrow corridor of stones leading to the central circle which also has a burial chamber. There are some amazing photos for sale in the visitors centre but the only ones to be had today were mean and moody sky ones! As we left there we noticed a field with absolutely tiny piglets running around. They were so cute, some were spotty and one was ginger :) There was a lovely family also looking at them so we had a chat with them. There are two more stone circles in the vicinity but we decided as we had seen the best we would move on to the Iron Age Broch at Carloway. This was an amazing thing to see – built in rock and with so much of it still standing after thousands of years. The design of it is incredibly advanced with several floors and an outer wall with cavities for both keeping animals and ‘stuff’ in and providing insulation. Brilliant. Entry to both the stones and the broch was free which is also pretty amazing! Decided to head back to Garry beach for the night as we liked it so much and it is about the nearest parking spot we know of to Stornaway for the ferry crossing on Monday. It is supposed to be pretty windy tomorrow so eyed up a spot to sail. We had to wait for our favourite parking space because 2 cars with trailers on were there. We waited down in the car park and started to cook the curry. Then we saw two quad bikes come over the bridge to nowhere. They were loaded into the trailers and shot off so we moved, cooking tea and all – back up the hill to our spot. |
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