Wonderful Wilderness

As we finally depart the Outer Hebrides it would be an injustice if we did not share some photos and words that try to capture what we have seen on our 12 day journey from Vesteray in the South through to Lewis in the North

Undertaking this journey as recent as the 1970/80s would have been completely different as not all the causeways in use today existed. This journey through the Outer Hebrides required 3 ferry crossings as we have travelled its length. Back then there would have been 13 to undertake if you had taken our journey. Maybe the land mass broken into islands gives a history that goes some way to explain the sense of similar but not the same that we experienced.

What they do all have in common though is a western shoreline that non stop provides a musical backdrop from waves crashing and wind sounding soft one moment and threatening the next. But then the majority of the western shoreline is looking out towards the eastern seaboard of America, Canada and Greenland so the wind and waves travel a long way.

Surprisingly for a part of the United Kingdom we associate with rain and cold, the beaches are blessed with tropical looking seas that range in colour from an aquamarine green through to blue and sands that went from white to various shades of yellow. If only the sun was more consistent!

The landscape is just as varied being a mix of rocky outcrops and strong hill ranges in places, with peat fields and bogs extending as far as the eye can see, The peat fields still provide a source of fuel to the islanders with a common sight as we drove around being areas of peat cutting with turves laid out to dry. This dramatic landscape of hill, moors and bogs is then fringed with low lying coastal crofting areas that contain the amazing Machair.