Wednesday 18th June

After breakfast we were all packed up and ready to go.  We made our way to the Port of Ness where we walked to the lighthouse and made our way back to the car around the coastline.  The weather today was throwing everything at us but snow!  As soon as we woke up it was misty and it was in the process of lifting by the time we parked the car.  On our way up to the lighthouse we noticed it getting mistier and mistier to the point there the top of the lighthouse could barely be seen - a bit of déjà vu....

Walking along the coast we could see the bouts of mist rolling in from the sea, which were interspersed with sunshine and clear views.  We took these opportunities to take our photos of course.  I was particularly glad that I had put on my waterproof trousers as well as my coat!  We saw a number of Kittiwake, Fulmar and Cormorants along the cliffs, and also flying higher up were Gannets, although none came quite close enough to photograph well. We encountered various sheep and lots of wild sea-bunnies!  Yes, they're normal bunnies, but I like to call them sea-bunnies as they live by the sea.  So cute to see them running about whilst walking along!  Eventually my waterproof boots gave in and I could feel the moisture seeping in.  Back to the car and after a change of socks and shoes, we made our way to Callanish again.

At Callanish the sun was out and the sky was blue.  Lovely and warm, although still windy.  We went into the cafe and both had a slice of quiche with salad.  Delicious!  Afterward, we continued on our journey to Uig on Lewis (not to be confused with Uig on Skye!).  It was a bit of a road trip but we soon made it there, having travelled through yet another different type of landscape - it was similar to the Lake District, only the mountains had much more bare rock exposed on the surface.  It was a mountainous area, and this was pretty much how I initially expected both Lewis and Harris to be like when we first came here.  Now we've experienced craggy hills and mountains, boggy mounds and gullies, vast expanses of flat bogs which made the island look twice as wide as it actually is, rolling rocky hills and now rocky craggy mountains with a view which makes you feel like you're already pretty high up in the mountains.

Eventually we found what we were looking for - the carving of a Lewis Chess Man - in particular, a large bearded king.  Carved all the way around, not just the front, he is on his own, close to the beach which is absolutely huge!  Continuing our exploration of this area, we drove around to the Uig Museum which had another large carved Lewis Chess piece, this time a Berserker just outside the entrance.  The Museum was was a small, local Museum with quite a lot of information in and it reminded me of the one we went to in Kirkwall, Orkney actually, although it was much smaller than that one.  It also had a small archive there if you wanted to research anything in particular.  Here, I bought a Harris Tweed cushion (no, there is absolutely no such thing as too many cushions!) and a couple of souvenirs for my brothers.  Coming out of the Museum, it was actually properly raining!  So we hot footed it to the car and set off back around this part of Lewis, going on a circular scenic drive to find another sculpture.

The An Suileachan sculpture is set on a mound and further back from the road than we expected - we only spotted it because we had seen the name of it written on an information board in what looked like a layby / small parking space.  The sculpture had been created to represent the 28 families of the village of Reef who were forcibly evicted from their homes in 1850, and after years of struggles the village was restored to crofting tenure.  It is comprised of two circular stone enlosures connected by a corridor over which there is what I would describe something similar to a dolmen stone shape.  In one enclosure is a metal bowl obviously used to light fires in, and in the other enclosure on the floor is a round stone engraved with each of the families' names on.

We completed the circuit of the scenic drive and returned to the main road.  Looking at the time and the fact that we had to get back to Tarbert tonight, we decided to skip Bosta Iron Age House, and make our way to Avalon B&B again, along the same road we had driven to get up to Stornoway.  This time though, we had much better weather, although still overcast, we could actually see mountains on this drive as well as the Lochs and the Sea!  Last time I only remember the road and very little else.  It was strangely new even though we had already been along that road.  These were a wonderful mixture of mountains of varying different heights, and on a sunnier day would have looked much more picturesque!  But still, we saw a lot more than we did the first time around, so that was good enough for us.  Come 6pm we had finally reached our B&B where we stayed in the same room as last time.  It had been a bit of a road trip today!

This evening we went out to dinner at The Hebrides Hotel again where I had a steak and Mathew had the haddock risotto again.