I drove up to Lemreway the scenic route. I left lots of time as stopping every few metres to take photos does slow progress up a little.
I was heading for the Marine Harvest Boat shed for a talk on the early archaeology of The Shiants. Mary McLeod’s session was fascinating and she put the findings from the Shiants in the wider context of the Western Isles. This was followed by a trip to the islands themselves. There were about 60 people going on the trip and there were two boats each taking 12 of us at a time. The journey was about 30 minutes and we were to get 3 hours on shore – a good taster and introduction to the islands. A stonking trip. Very reminiscent of St Kilda. The weather did grey a little with a bit of rain: this only heightened my enjoyment – probably a wee fantasy of being stuck there for longer than the day! Some of Mary McLeod’s observations kept running through my head: one should think of bothies as stone tents and then they seem quite comfortable! And in seeing where the former residents had cultivated lazy beds showed that this had become “a landscape of desperation”
After dinner I stayed in the lounge and ordered some more wine and downloaded my pictures onto the laptop, chatting to the locals, and discovering the Harris Hotel had a WiFi setup for which I got a password. The connection was intermittent but I did manage to e-mail a few contacts.
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