Yearly Archives: 2021

Hebridean Way Round Up

What photo takes you right back to the Hebridean Way?

Vatersay beach

The spectacular beaches made us get our cameras out every time, no matter the weather the sea seemed to glow turquoise and they were usually more or less deserted too. This is Vatersay on our first day

Summarise the Hebridean Way in three words.

  • Remote – not only are the islands themselves remote from the mainland but cycling there we often felt ourselves to be remote from the conveniences that we’re used to – there often isn’t a shop, cafe, restaurant, campsite or public toilet for tens of miles and we made sure to always have some food supplies in reserve, just in case
  • Rolling – the Hebridean Way isn’t a physically challenging route and we often found ourselves nicely rolling along up and down on the undulating roads
  • Resilient – from the neolithic standing stones dotted around the islands, to the remains of the village at St Kilda, and the museum in Stornoway, imagining how people have lived here over the centuries and dealt with the harsh conditions was a theme of our visit

You really know you’re in the Outer Hebrides when…

…all of the caution animal signs have googly eyes! We have no idea who travelled the islands adding these but they were there from the causeway at Eriskay all the way to Stornoway. Any humans in similar signs (riding the horse, pedestrians) were always blind.

What one item should you definitely pack when going to the Outer Hebrides?

Midge headnet and insect repellent. To be fair most of the time the midges weren’t too bad but when they did come out they were very annoying! We picked up headnets in Tarbert and they made the rest of our stay much more comfortable.

Hebridean Way: Day 13 – Stornoway to Inverness (and home)

Distance cycled 15.6 miles / 25.1 km
Cumulative distance cycled 334.8 miles / 539 km
Islands visited (daily total) Lewis
Total islands visited 10+1 of 10
Average speed 11.1 mph / 17.9 kmph
Weather conditions Drizzly rain

In the Museum Nan Eilean we’d seen a photo and some drawings of a stone structure that we didn’t recognise, and so with our ferry leaving Stornoway early afternoon we had some time (if not the weather) for a final wee jaunt in the morning to make the most of our last day in the Outer Hebrides.

Memorial Cairn to the Grias & Coll Raiders, March 1919

The plaque nearby reads:

This memorial commemorates the events following the First World War, then returning servicemen took the law into their own hands and claimed the land that the government had promised them.

It is built at the place of confrontation between the crofters of the area and Lord Leverhulme, the owner of Lewis and Harris at that time.

Conflict arose when Leverhulme bought Lewis and Harris in 1918. He planned to industrialise Lewis and opposed the Board of Agriculture’s scheme to divide some of the farms into crofts for landless families.

In March 1919, some of the biggest land raids took place at the farms of Upper Coil and Gress. Land raiding continued throughout Lewis until 1921, when a disillusioned Leverhulme gave up his industrial projects for good. As a result, many people without work emigrated to Canada.

The government finally kept their promise to meet the demand crofts, and the people won the right to the land.

Before he left the island in 1923, Lord Leverhulme gifted the parish of Stornoway to the people, it is now run on their behalf by the Stornoway Trust.

While we were researching its location, we found that these memorial cairns are dotted around Lewis so we were surprised we hadn’t come across them. Then we found they’re of various different designs and we had seen one on the route – the one for the Pairc Cairn Deer Raiders.

Sheltering from the weather with a coffee and cake in Stornoway while we wait for our ferry

While waiting for our ferry we found out that the strike action by ScotRail was extended and as a result our train from Inverness to Edinburgh had been cancelled 2 days prior. Their call centre were very helpful – we were booked to travel on a Sunday, so we could use our ticket for any train on a day either side, and while there were seats for us, there were no bicycle reservations for the Saturday left. LNER have one train which was also fully bicycle-reserved.

Boarding the ferry from Stornoway and the end of our time on the Outer Hebrides.. for now :o)

We’d pre-booked a specialist bike transfer from Ullapool to Inverness with the excellent (in service and in name) Ticket to Ride, and spent the time thinking of ideas for getting us and our bikes home: car hire – ~£200 but none available; van hire – same; turn up at the train station and hope for a bicycle cancellation; coach – ~£50 a last resort and we’d have to pack up the bikes into boxes or bubblewrap; courier the bikes – ~£30 each packed up again, and we would have to impose on our lovely AirBnB hosts in Inverness for storage…

The excellent Ticket to Ride collecting us and two fellow Hebridean Way cyclists from Ullapool – hi Charlie and Alice!

Anyway, cutting a long story short, we decided that we’d rather have the full Saturday to explore Inverness, and ended up booking a taxi-friend of a taxi-friend of Ticket to Ride to take us and the bikes to Edinburgh to meet our onward connection home.

That first night we had a lovely evening at the Black Isle Brewery bar with Charlie and Alice drinking beer, eating pizza and talking cycles and holidays! As is so often the case, we came away from one trip with more ideas & recommendations for future ones!

Our day in Inverness, clockwise from top-left: Inverness Botanical Gardens; the view from the top of Tomnahurich Cemetery; real ales and wood-fired pizza (heaven!) at the Black Isle Brewery Bar – so good we went twice; Leakey’s book shop (also heaven!)

Hebridean Way: Day 12 – Lewis (Stornoway – castle grounds and Museum Nan Eilean)

Distance cycled 0 miles / 0 km
Cumulative distance cycled 319.2 miles / 513.9 km
Islands visited (daily total) Lewis
Total islands visited 10+1 of 10
Average speed n/a mph / n/a kmph
Weather conditions Heavy showers

Stornoway is the capital of Lewis and by far the largest town in the Outer Hebrides but by mainland standards it’s small with a population of just 5,000. Nevertheless, full size supermarkets, other shops and a choice of cafes, restaurants and pubs made it feel like a bustling metropolis to us after the last two weeks!

The weather was windy and drizzly when we woke with more rain forecast for later so we decided to go for a wander with the aim of ducking into the museum and/or a cafe if it got too bad. First stop was the war memorial at the top of the hill. It’s an impressive structure, built by subscription after WWI and added to after WWII, with views over the town and beyond.

Stornoway war memorial

From there we headed down the hill and into the castle grounds. Lews Castle is a 19th century stately home which now houses an expensive hotel as well as a museum and archive. The extensive grounds function as a huge public park and were basically deserted on a wet Thursday morning in September. We wandered some of the mountain bike trails through the dripping trees and could have been miles from anywhere. Eventually the path brought us down to the seafront which we followed to the Woodlands Cafe. By now it was starting to rain quite heavily so we sheltered under the eaves of the cafe until a table was available and after our meal made a dash to the museum which is located in an extension behind the castle.

Lews Castle Grounds on a damp September day

Lews Castle Grounds on a damp September day

Museum Nan Eilean (Museum of the Islands) as its name suggests tells the story of life on the islands. Over 50% of islanders speak gaelic as their first language and the museum recognises this with bilingual exhibits. It begins with videos of islanders speaking about their lives and continues with exhibits of different aspects from nature to religion to fishing and the arts. It’s compact but very well done and we thoroughly enjoyed learning more about some of the things we’d seen during our holiday.

Lews Castle and exhibits from Museum Nan Eilean

Clockwise from top: Lews Castle; a wedding dress made from very fine Harris Tweed; exhibit of music and religion in Museum Nan Eilean; we were excited to see some examples of the actual Uig chessmen

Stornoway and part of the harbour from the castle grounds

Stornoway and part of the harbour from the castle grounds

From the castle we walked down into the town. Our final stop was a beautiful and moving piece of art in Stornoway harbour commemorating the Iolaire disaster. HMY Iolaire was a Royal Navy yacht returning men to the islands after WWI. Tragically it foundered on rocks within sight of the shore and families waiting to welcome home their loved ones instead watched as 201 of the 280 on board drowned. The memorial consists of 280 wooden posts in the sand making the exact shape of the yacht, with 79 painted white to signify the survivors. It disappears and reappears with the tide, and is lit at night which unfortunately we didn’t see.

Iolaire memorial

Iolaire memorial

Hebridean Way: Day 11 – Lewis (Shawbost to Stornoway)

Distance cycled 29.2 miles / 47 km
Cumulative distance cycled 319.2 miles / 513.9 km
Islands visited (daily total) Lewis
Total islands visited 10+1 of 10
Average speed 11.6 mph / 18.7 kmph
Weather conditions Showers, very still, lots of midges

We knew that the ride to Stornoway wasn’t too long and as the weather didn’t look too bad we decided to pop into some of the nearby attractions that we’d skipped due to lack of time on the previous 2 days. First up was the Norse mill & kiln just outside Shawbost. It’s a short walk over a hill from the roadside car park, but by this point in the trip we were fairly blasé about leaving our bikes and all our stuff and didn’t even lock the back wheels. Crime on the islands is low and several locals told us that they never lock their front doors and that keys are left in the ignition of parked cars! The mill and kiln are a reconstructed site and we spent a while figuring out how the mill worked before we found the information leaflet explaining it inside.

Norse mill and kiln

Norse mill and kiln

Just a few miles down the road is the Arnol blackhouse, another reconstructed site but this time a proper museum. Sadly not open on the day we visited so we read the information board outside and wandered through the unreconstructed blackhouse ruins opposite. Blackhouses were the traditional form of dwelling for hundreds of years in the Hebrides and humans and animals shared the space. They didn’t have chimneys, this made the home easier to keep warm, the smoke killed bugs and the smoky thatch was a good fertiliser for the fields.

Arnol blackhouse

Arnol blackhouse (clockwise from top-left): the museum blackhouse; cut peats for the fire; unreconstructed blackhouse room; and entrance

Having enjoyed both of those sites more than we’d expected we decided to carry on past the turning for Stornoway to investigate a sign that we’d seen to another stone circle during our return from the Butt of Lewis. The weather was starting to come in and by the time we reached the Steinacleit circle parking area visibility was poor, it was raining lightly, midges were about and we were feeling a bit sorry for ourselves.

Steinacleit stone circle

The “circle” itself was disappointing after what we’d seen around Callanish, no excavations have been done and the best theory for the stones is that they are the remains of a prehistoric farm

The weather improved as we rode over the moor to Stornoway, and it was totally still so that the small lochs we passed looked like mirrors in the heather. It was beautiful but there’s not much photographic evidence of this part of the ride as the midges descended within seconds of pulling over, this also meant that we didn’t want to stop for lunch so we were starving hungry by the time we arrived at the campsite at the edge of town. Again the weather forecast for the following day looked poor and so we upgraded from the camping field to a couple of beds in the bunkhouse. Because of covid, rooms were reserved for household bubbles so we had a 4-bed room to ourselves as well as access to a shared kitchen and lounge – relative luxury for our last couple of nights in the Hebrides!

Dinner at Harbour Kitchen

We finished the day with a delicious dinner at Harbour Kitchen

Hebridean Way: Day 10 – Lewis (Shawbost to Butt of Lewis and back)

Distance cycled 50.8 miles / 81.8 km
Cumulative distance cycled 290 miles / 466.9 km
Islands visited (daily total) Lewis
Total islands visited 10+1 of 10
Average speed 11.6 mph / 18.7 kmph
Weather conditions Overcast with sunny spells, glorious tailwind on the way there and brutal headwind on the way back

Today’s the day we complete the Hebridean Way!

Given that the Butt of Lewis is ~25 miles from the nearest campsite on our map (though we had heard of a bothy/bunkhouse near the top), and the only road to Stornoway and the ferry home is ~15 miles from said campsite, it made sense to us to stay 2 nights here with the added benefit of doing the final stretch with unladen bikes – our legs and Julie’s pannier rack would thank us by the end of the day!

With near perfect cycling conditions of slightly overcast skies and tailwinds we set off, our first stop en-route is a giant whale jaw-bone arch which the locals salvaged from a beached whale in 1920.

Andrew standing under the whale bone arch – nope, I’m not brave enough to stand under the harpoon!

The story goes that the whale washed ashore with the harpoon in its head trailing 50 feet of rope. A whaling company was contacted but no-one came to deal with it. The decaying whale caused quite a smell, so the locals rolled up their sleeves and sorted it themselves! As a memento, the village postmaster and general merchant managed to get the 4 tonne lower jawbones from the shore and erected them at his home as a gateway. The harpoon hangs from the centre.

It wasn’t on our map, but a Sheiling House was signposted and visible from the road so we stopped to investigate

Sheilings are small huts or buildings used during the summer as a base near grazing land and are often in remote locations

It looked very inviting, especially as this one was made up and ready to move in. That is until we realised the bed is probably crawling with bugs.. on second thoughts..

A little further along, and past the turning to Stornoway we stopped at the Ballanstrushal Standing Stone, where, seated on the picnic bench was a guy taking in the scenery with a cup of coffee. Turns out he lives in the house right next to the stone and he told us there was “quite the story about the old woman that is buried beneath it” but didn’t elaborate any further!

The Ballanstrushal Standing Stone – we think it’s taller and heavier than the central stone at Callanish

Having boiled some eggs we’d bought from a roadside honesty box yesterday, we stopped for accompanying provisions first at the shop in Borve (side note: I think I’ve seen a sign for a Borve on every island – sometimes multiple!) – which was like stepping into the 70’s with the brands available – and then the community run co-op at Cross which was well-stocked, had a little bakery and made their own black pudding!

A sausage and shop-made black pudding roll – still warm too, lovely!

Refuelled, it wasn’t long before the lighthouse at the Butt of Lewis peeped over the horizon and after nearly missing the turning and spotting a buzzard take off from a roadside fencepost we were there – the official end of the Hebridean Way.

Made it! The sun came out for 10 minutes when we arrived too, how nice! Officially it’s 185 miles from the start in Vatersay, at this point we’d ridden about 275 miles

We enjoyed our lunch as 4 or 5 seals enjoyed bobbing in the rocky coves in the waters below!

A little further along the northern coastline is the small and quiet fishing marina of Port of Ness which has a lovely (and very busy) cafe. We didn’t stop for lunch as we’d just eaten but we did use their semi-public facilities which is notable as there aren’t that many public loos along the route!

The quiet marina at the Port of Ness. There’s a memorial to the fishing boats lost at sea from near this vantage point

There’s a maxim that things going up must come down, and if there were a cycling equivalent then it must surely be about headwinds – and as soon as we turned south the weather was against us and took a turn for the worse. No more than a drizzle and not enough to get us wet or dampen our spirits but it did make it feel like a bit of a heads-down slog, especially as we’d stopped at all of the interesting places we wanted to see on the way up.

Lovely view even with the drizzly yucky headwind

Back at the campsite, showered and changed, we celebrated with nibbles, a mini Highland gin and tonic, a bottle of red wine and camp-stove made mozzarella and tomato calzone!

Thanks to Tara from Bike. Camp. Cook. for the inspiration and the recipe, but extra thanks to Julie for making it :o) x