I managed to check an item off my bucket list last week. After attending a very English wedding in the gentle countryside of Hertfordshire in the south of England, we took an eight-hour train from London to Inverness in the beautiful but bleak Scottish Highlands. Following a night with my cousin and her family there, we headed for the port of Ullapool on the Western coast of Scotland and took a three-hour ferry ride to the port town of Stornaway on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides – one of the most remote northern parts of the British Isles. In fact, these islands are closer to Iceland than London!
Despite the popularity of the time traveling books and TV series ‘Outlander’, many people are not aware that Scotland has 790 islands as well as more than 10% of Europe’s entire coastline. The islands of Scotland are divided into five categories: The Outer Hebrides, The Inner Hebrides, the Shetland Islands, Orkney Island, the Firth of Forth with the tidal islands. Only 130 of these islands have permanent inhabitants and some form of scheduled transportation to get you there. Also known as The Western Isles, the Outer Hebrides consist of 15 inhabited islands and more than 50 uninhabited islands. The largest of these are the Isles of Lewis and Harris, which are connected and the most northerly of the Outer Hebrides. This is where we found ourselves for our Scottish island adventure.
I spent lots of vacations in the highlands of Scotland as a child and young woman since we have family in the Inverness region. Some of them moved to the Isle of Lewis a few years ago and we used this as an excuse for our trip. It is beautiful in a stark way, very remote and thinly populated, cold and extremely windy, and provides a very different way of life on what felt like the end of the earth. Despite the obvious natural beauty of the place, I personally could not live in such a cold and remote location with rain most days and winters with short, dark days with only a few hours of daylight. Of course, since we visited in the summer, we enjoyed long days with nightfall well after 10pm and dawn starting to appear on the horizon around 3am. Thank goodness I packed my eye mask!
The scenery of the two connected islands is very different as Lewis is covered by peat moor and has many small inland lakes, while Harris is rocky and very hilly. There is little cultivable land, but sheep and cattle are raised. Most of the land is “tenanted by crofters”, which means part time farmers rent or sometimes own small farms which average less than 7 acres.
There are stunning white sand beaches comparable to the Caribbean except for the wind and low temperatures! When we visited Luskentyre beach on the southern side of the island, I was surprised to see some enthusiastic German visitors in shorts and bikinis swimming in the freezing Atlantic. I watched them while huddled deep into my jacket and multiple layers of clothing. Despite it being early August, the highest temperature we enjoyed was 57F but we also experienced lows of 39F with horizontal rain and strong winds.
These Scottish Isles have been inhabited by people for more than 5000 years. A major date in the Lewis historical calendar was 1150 B.C. when the volcano Hekla in Iceland erupted, producing the equivalent of a ‘nuclear winter’ for Scotland. The Hebrides were inhabited by the Celtic people and Gaelic (pronounced Gallick) is still widely spoken in schools, homes, and on the announcements on our ferry! In the late 800s the Vikings from Scandinavia attacked, conquered and settled there. Then, in the year 1263, Scotland defeated invading Norwegians, and Scottish clans established their control over both the mainland and the islands.
The Vikings influenced all aspects of life and culture, including building techniques. The island’s traditional ‘blackhouses’ were long, low, thatchedroof buildings made from large, roughly cut stones stacked on top of each other in a layer of two walls, with the gap between them filled with a combination of earth and peat. These were a “cozy” combination of family home and stables for animals which meant there was more warmth. There was a peat fire kept constantly burning in the center. We toured some of these restored homes which unbelievably had people living in them until the mid-1970s, despite no electricity or running water.
Today, most private sector jobs are provided by agriculture, fishing, and tourism. There are also a lucky few who weave the famous Harris Tweed fabric, as well as work in local whiskey and gin distilleries.
There is a lot more information at www. britannica.com I will leave you with two quotes by Billy Connolly, the Scottish comedian, actor, artist, musician, and television presenter: “There are two seasons in Scotland. June and winter,” and “There’s no such thing as bad weather in Scotland, just the wrong clothes!” God bless America!
Lesley grew up in London, England and made Georgia her home in 2009. She can be contacted at lesley@francis. com or via her full-service marketing agency at www.lesleyfrancispr.com