Dramatic Neist Point, Skye

After seeing various postcards in the tourist shops of Neist Point, Richard and I decided it looked well worth a visit and hunted it down on the map. It was on the western most point of the landmass to the west of Dunvegan – we resolved to visit it on our next non-hill day…

Wiay, Outer Hebrides

Having to put this archival post out – all due to the Post Office who decided, in their infinite wisdom, to not deliver my films for processing for a whole week! (and to charge an extra £3.17 postage in the process)… That means that it will now be at least another week before my photos come back for scanning so all the posts I’ve written for my recent burst of activity will have to wait awhile. Royal Mail used to be good once – now, like so many of our British institutions, going rapidly downhill 😦

Haunted Hebrides

For five years, when I was in the Army back in the late ’70s, I lived on the Outer Hebrides, specifically the Isles of Benbecula, North and South Uist. The three islands are joined by causeways across the North and South Fords and we lived on Benbecula and worked on South Uist.

I’ve always been fairly susceptible to ‘atmosphere’ in a place and have quite a few times seen various types of unexplainable sightings and apparitions. My mother is the same and we both have a penchant for wandering off alone, me mostly at night – I particularly like misty nights… I always found South Uist particularly ‘atmospheric’ and Benbecula fairly so, depending on the location – sometimes to the point of creepiness.

Gillaval Glas Round Attempt aka ‘The Germans’

While staying on the Isle of Harris (Outer Hebrides) to walk some of the superb mountains there, I shared a B&B in Tarbert with a German couple. They were quite young and very pleasant company – she spoke good English but he knew very little. The next morning we were at breakfast discussing German’s apparent similarity to Welsh when they asked me what my plans were for the day. I said there was a nice round of mountains on the Lewis border – the Gillaval Glas round.

Harris-Gillaval Glas round

Hosta – a Beautiful but Dangerous Beach!

This beach is probably the most popular on North Uist but also sees many fatalities, mainly among the tourists. I believe this is because of the steep slope of the beach which means the waves go out extra vigorously and with a lot of drag. This wave action, however, is possibly why the beach is apparently now a surfing hotspot! Certainly no-one surfed there when I was last on the islands around 10 years ago.

The rocks near the edges of the bay are a superb vantage point to take photos but, as I found when I was taking these, many a huge wave comes in and tries to pluck you off them in rough weather!

Approach to beach

North Harris – Uisgnaval Mor Round

On my first walking trip to Harris I decided I liked the look of the Uisgnaval Mor and Teilesval ridge – hills of 2405 and 2300 feet respectively…

My 2 are on the left… (Clisham on the right)

Hebridean Sunsets

Having lived on the Outer Hebrides off Scotland for nearly 5 years, I can vouch for the fact that the islands have superb sunsets – here are some I captured both when I lived there and on my re-visits to the islands…

The Pathless Peaks Between Loch Eynort and Lochboisdale (S Uist)

Done over two walks… The second walk was done in 100% plastic, waterproof walking boots which didn’t work out to my advantage despite the wet ground…

Ben More Uist & The Mini Striding Edge (& Ben Corodale)

During one of my holiday visits back to Uist, I was lying in bed reading a book by the famous Seton Gordon who had written a chapter on walking in the mountains of South Uist. In it, to my surprise, he mentioned the huge craggy face of Ben More – “From the top of the hill a great buttress dropped sheer. Very grim did it seem”. Prior to that I had imagined that the gentle hills there had no such thing as huge crags! I decided that the next day, if it was fine, I had to go and see for myself.

Hecla, South Uist

For years, while living on the Uists in the 70s, I was confused by the name Hecla for a mountain. For a start it didn’t end in ‘val’ (or more properly, in Gaelic, ‘bhal’) and for seconds, it just looked really strange! It was years later before I read something on mountains in Iceland and realised it was actually a Gaelicised Norse word and would originally have been called ‘Hekla’ but that the Gaels had substituted a letter c for the k. Now that made far more sense.

Hecla & Ben Tarbert