Eventually we reached the start of the walk, next to a mountain. There was a cafe nearby called 'The Temple Cafe' which we thought we would investigate later. The walk took us around the base of the mountain so the terrain was much firmer here, and less craggy than that which we had seen en route. Approaching the beach, it got sandier underfoot as the sand dunes became closer. Around the corner, we saw the ruined chapel in the distance at which point the ground was more undulating, like sand dunes. As we approached the chapel it began to drizzle but it was quite light so we continued. At the chapel, known as Rubh' an Teampaill, the drizzle became heavier so we donned our coats. The chapel itself was small and had been built on a stony mound which indicates earlier buildings - the interpretation board suggests a nunnery, and also this was a site of a Broch 2000 years ago, the chapel having been built on what seems like the foundation course of it.
Moving on, we walked in a loop back around to the Cafe via the beach, walking over some sand dunes and almost getting pecked by diving squawking Terns who seemed to be protecting their nest which wasn't actually that close to where we started walking on the beach, and we were walking in the opposite direction! Fortunately we were expecting it having seen someone being swooped on earlier, as we were making our way down....! Up and around the other side, we were back at the cafe where we ordered roast tomato soup and sat outside as it was a tiny place and rather full...! The soup was very thick and hearty so we thought there was a lot more to it than just roast tomato, and unfortunately it was seasoned to hell, or there had been a tragic accident with the ground pepper. Perhaps this is the trend right now...we seem to have experienced this with a few places recently, so perhaps it's in fashion. It was such a shame as I could tell with my first spoonful it was a very tasty soup, but after the second spoonful I could only taste the pepper and just about the tomato. I really wish people wouldn't spoil soup so much by over seasoning; they really shouldn't be trying to hide the real flavour.
Anyway, after having had plenty to drink to cool my mouth and throat down, we continued to explore Harris. It was getting more and more craggy by the minute as we drove on and more south down the island,and we stopped at St. Clements Church. We weren't expecting an entire church first of all, so that was a surprise. Once we had walked up the sweeping pathway up to the church, inside was pretty impressive - modern wood had been used to create the ceiling of the church and there were two stone alcoves under each was a Knight's Tomb - both rather worn,but you could definitely make out the figure. One of the alcoves was richly decorated with engravings which were also very impressive. In one transept was another Knight's tomb beneath a window, and the other transept displayed some engraved slab stones. At the tower end of the church there was small door so we went to explore, we weren't expecting much, but it turned put to be a windy narrow staircase, and at the top of each short flight of steps a light automatically came on. We went up about three flights and ended up in a square room, where another light came on and we could see another door way with more stairs. We continued up another three short flights of steps until we reached another square room, and looking up into the ceiling there was an entrance from which some stairs would have been, as we could see the wooden balcony in the highest room of the tower from there. Making our way back down and outside, we walked around the graveyard and had a look at various enclosed stones which we originally thought were family plots as they were large enough to be.
They turned out to be tombs to one person each which were all surrounded in stone with their own doorways or gates. A number of these had either become overgrown or nearly overgrown with giant bushes of red fuscia which actually looked really very nice. Reading the inscriptions, we discovered two members of the MacLeod family, one of whom fought against Cromwell and was knighted, and the other was his Grandson or great grandson who had fought with the Jacobites against the Hanovarians.Leaving the church, we continued on with our exploration of Harris - using the Ordnance Survey map, we decided to use the yellow road which we thought would be quite fun. And it was - mostly single carriage roads with passing places and lots of blind summits so we didn't really know which way the road was turning until we got there! Slightly hair raising at times as there wasn't a great deal of wiggle room either side of the road. But we stopped off at several spots to take photos as we drove further south and East, making our way back up to Tarbert.
The further south and east we went, the landscape changed almost completely and the mountains were the rockiest mountains we had ever seen! The landscape here is very rocky and craggy, on top of which vegetation has obviously grown, but because of all the nooks and crannies in the rock, water has sat here without draining so the combination of this has turned it into a rocky, yet boggy landscape. Lots of yellow irises grow close to the roadside, in the same way as you would expect daffodils to grow beside the roads in England. The landscape is covered in soft bouncy grass, moss, sharp sedges and a sprinkling of cotton grass amongst heather. It's a very unique combination and quite fun to walk on, although I don't think I could walk on it for that long...!It was a fun journey exploring the island and eventually we returned to Tarbert, having stopped off at the Hebrides Hotel to book a table at their restaurant. I chose the salmon and Mathew had smoked haddock risotto. When it came to paying, it seemed our drinks had been missed off....well we weren't going to complain about that...! Back to the B&B, we prepared to leave the following morning.
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