June 1, Our trip to Harris

June 1, Decca Cottage - Our day in Harris (yesterday)

Yesterday we had the best day yet. The day was a clear and bright as we could ever have hoped for with the only remnants of the previous day's rain constrained to the puddles that form everywhere. The Outer Hebrides is apparently just one big sponge.

We got out of the cottage early for a change and headed south. Though a little hazy with all the humidity from the day before we had perfect travelling weather. We started out for Calanais to visit the visitor's center and see the #2 and #3 stone circles. We did the center then headed across for the two un-interpreted sites about half a mile away. You know these Scots just put those standing stones wherever. We found a place to park along the highway (snort) and walked the boggy path across a pasture to where
the first stone circle stood.

They have livestock everywhere on this island, sometimes constrained to a fenced area, sometimes not. In this case there were fences and when there are fences there are gates or stiles. In this case we had
gates. They were fabulous. If you look at the bottom of the curved part you will see that there are little people raising stones. I saw the people but didn't notice what they were doing until we got back last night and Hannah pointed it out. These gates are really cool. I suppose most importantly they keep the livestock from wandering out since you just about have to be a two-footer to get yourself through and us dumb tourists can't accidentally leave them open.

So anyway we got to the top and sure enough there were
standing stones right on top of the hill. We took
pictures and were suitably awed by the woo-woo ness of it all. Clearly so were the cows that stood guard over the stones. Well not so much stood as laid about. These were the fine
hielan' cattle...you know the ones with bangs? They were not terribly annoyed by our taking their pictures
(though some of my cohorts may have been) among the stones and later provided us with an opportunity to get a good photograph of
the great standing cattle and stone circle at Callenish.

We thought that was
great fun and headed south towards Rodel and
the chapel there. Each mile further south became more and more beautiful...The scenery changed from rolling hills to
craggy rocky, rock covered, rocky mountains albeit short ones - and did I say they were rocky? This is in fact where rock comes from. Waterfalls, streams, lakes, rocks, mountains. Every time we turned a corner we just gasped. We finally drove through the narrow strip of land that acts as the divider between Harris and Lewis islands and the scenery began to change to
views of the ocean and the sea with the mountains, lakes, streams, rocks. Oh and if that weren't enough, then came the
south Harris beaches. Miles and miles of golden sand beaches.
Green and blue water golden sands, bright green of the grass on the machair, and the
many colored spots on the sheep. I never would have imagined it could be so gorgeous.

We did find Rodel and climbed around in it. There were many narrow
small passageways going up into the tower. The last two or three were
by ladder which I avoided since there wasn't anything up there except height and the windows were so small as to not make it worth going for the view. There were several
tombs in the church and gaelic knot illustrations carved into the
tombstones that were positioned along the walls. They had been moved but labelled so that people would be able to admire without walking on them. There were many
tombstones in the yard and most were for MacKenzies, MacLeods, and so forth.
(No, he wasn't so don't even go there)

After Rodel we drove back north and stopped to
walk along the beautiful golden beaches. I finally broke down and collected a few shells along with oh say a thousand photographs (don't worry I'm not posting them all here). We saw more standing stones including MacLeod's Stone which is atop a hillside overlooking one of the more picturesque beaches, apparently standing guard. It was just breathtaking.

Once we finally had our fill of beautiful scenery and squishing our toes in the sand and bathing our eyes with the neverending glory we headed north again back to Lewis.

The drive was the same route we took down so everyone got to see what was on the other side of the road. We stopped in Tarbert and had dinner at the Harris Inn which was the best meal we had out so far then headed home.

When we got back to the cottage Terry and Meg took off for the Butt to take in the sunset and I headed back to Eoropaidh beach and took another five hundred photographs or so of
the sun setting over the ocean. I just can't imagine a more beautiful place. Meg and I sat up until about 1 in the morning watching the "dailies" and saying to each other "This was just the best day EVER". And it was.

So long Outer Hebrides. I hope I come back soon.