Framedlight

After a walk around Stornoway we fancied exploring a little further, and so we drove out on the Eye Peninsula, due north east of the town. There is a lighthouse at Tiumpan Head, at the very end, where you are supposed to watch for wales. We looked for a while but no large mammals broke the surface of the sea. It was blowing quite hard and quite dull with a weak sun. I managed to find an informal rubbish dump. At the base of the peninsula is the ruined St Columba Ui Church, the ui meaning isthmus. This is one of the most important archaeological sites on Lewis, The church was the main place of worship on the island in medieval times and is the resting place of the Macleod chiefs and the Mckenzies who ruled Lewis in later years. The memorial cairn was built to commemorate the crofters of Aignish who rioted in 1887 against the tyranny of the landlords. Our final visit of the day was to Holm, from where we walked out onto the cliff to...

Following our one warm day on Mull, the morning dawned in a thick mist. As we departed the quay in the Iolaire, the boat we had booked with Staffa Trips, the skipper pronounced that it 'was always like this after a warm day'. He could have said that when we booked the excursion! The boat was a nice wooden one, mainly open with plenty of room for Hettie the dog to curl up under the seats. The crew were also very helpful and gave a running commentary on the sea life we could see through the murk. Below are some eider ducks on a small rock, cormorants on a large rock and a young seal who was just shedding his baby fur. We could see small islands appearing out of the mist, a bit later some guillemots and finally a couple of flying puffins told us we were getting close to Staffa. We motored on until Staffa became visible and finally docked. I suppose it may have been more exciting approaching it in the fog as we were almost on top of it before we c...