The Butt of Lewis

Bill and I stayed on the island an extra day after the festival concluded to avoid the mass exodus. 

Our bed and breakfast host, Margot, had warned us that 'The church is strong on the island' on Sundays and that we wouldn't find much open. We picked up some picnic-type items on Saturday to bring in our car Sunday as we drove along the northern edge of the island.  

Standing stones of northern Lewis

The first item on the list of sights to see was a mostly demolished set of standing stones. This set of stones was fairly small, but had a good vantage point on the top of a hill surrounded on three sides by good fields and a lake on the forth side. There was only a small plaque with historical details, and it looks like this had once been a site for locals to gather together, perhaps for trade, religion, and/or governance. 

Standing stones

We were glad we had thrown our new wellies into the car before we set out. There wasn't any rain that morning, but the whole island felt soaked through and through! 

The beach at Ness

We continued on up to the northernmost beach on Lewis, the Port of Ness. There is a retail shop chain in northern England called Ness and it sells a lot of beautiful Harris Tweed as well as Ness Tweed and women's clothes and purses. I hope the shops are named for this beautiful little fishing village. As you can see, the tide was low and fairly flat. We heard that you can often spot whales from this beach but although we looked and looked, we saw zero marine mammals. 

Ness harbor

Our footprints in Ness beach

Ness beach

Bill and I loved walking on the beach, hearing the lapping of the water and seeing the rocks covered in algae, muscles, barnacles, etc. It reminded us so much of home.

Beautiful algae at Ness

More Ness algae

After a long time hanging out in Ness, Bill and I drove 10 minutes or so to reach the northernmost point on the island called the Butt of Lewis.

The Butt of Lewis

I looked it up and it seems Butt and Butte are basically the same thing, but it didn't keep up from giggling. Again, we were reminded of Big Sur and the Carmel Highlands with the high cliffs and crashing ocean down below. 

Lighthouse at the Butt of Lewis

The lighthouse was operational and visitors aren't allowed in, but visitors can walk all around the lighthouse and along the cliffside. This is a fairly famous visitors site on Lewis and like most places in Europe, there were no guardrails or barricades, you just have to keep back from the cliff's edge or fall over and die. Needless to say, parents were holding their little ones' hands in death grips! 

A butt never looked so breathtaking!

Bill and I had our lunch picnic in our car and then decided to head back to our bed and breakfast. There really wasn't a single thing open on the whole of the island (no shops, no restaurants or cafes, no gas stations, no information centers), and the only other thing we wanted to do is see sites that were run by the National Trust and English Heritage, but those were all closed for the day, too. It turned out to be a good decision because by the time we made it back to our room, the sky opened up again and dumped several more inches onto the already soaked island. 

Sign on the Butt of Lewis Lighthouse

I took this photo because I found it so ironic. We were standing outside the lighthouse at the Butt of Lewis the very day that Teresa May took over as Prime Minister, less than ten days after the UK voted to leave the EU. Interesting time to be in England, that's for sure! 

Hebridean Celtic Festival 2016

This post is dedicated to all things music over the 3+ days we spent at the Hebridean Celtic Festival. 

WEDNESDAY

Although the festival didn't officially kick off until Thursday, Bill and I had procured tickets to the Wednesday night kick-off event, Hebridean Women. We had no idea if it would be any good, but we found out upon arrival that the concert had sold out months in advance. At will call the gal handed us the tickets and told us if we had changed our minds, they had a wait list and would be happy to buy the tickets back. Heck no! We didn't really know any of the women preforming at the concert, but if that many people wanted to go, we were definitely going to go!  

Wednesday night's Hebridean women concert 

The Hebridean Women concert was held in a small (100 person or so) concert hall that was filled to capacity. We arrived early and were able to get some pretty good seats. All of the tickets said 'strictly no photography during the concert' so I took the above stage photo prior to the start of the show. And what a show it was! Julie Fowlis was the only woman I had even heard of (she sang the theme song for Pixar's Brave), but they all had beautiful voices. All of the songs were sung in Scots Gaelic (pronounced gah-lic, not gay-lic) and most of the preformance chatter between songs were also in Gaelic and it was clear that almost everyone in the audience could understand what was being said. Initially I wished for subtitles, but then I decided to just let the language wash over me and both Bill and I really, really enjoyed ourselves.

THURSDAY

Poster for Thursday night's Fara concert

Pre-concert, awaiting Fara

Thursday was spent down in Harris (see previous blog post), culminating in a Fara concert. Again, we weren't supposed to take photos during the concert, so I took one prior to the gals hitting the stage... Well, this wasn't really a stage, just one end of a small library. 

FRIDAY

The very next day, after our torrential downpour saga (see 'The Calm before the Storm' post) we got to see Fara again. This concert was at a much larger venue. I was so happy that their gig started with few attendees but by the end of their 90-minute set the marquee was packed with foot-stompin', hand-clapin', hee-yaw-ing festival goers. I saw lots of people break the 'no photo' rule, so I broke the rule, too!   

Friday's Fara concert at the festival grounds

Later we saw Julie Fowlis' 90-minute set in one of the festival tents. She is one of the better-known Hebridean vocalists and the tent was pretty well packed before her set started. Bill and I arrived early enough to get a really good, front and center spot. I like to arrive early whenever possible because I can't see anything if I'm too far back. Bill and I each took photos from our vantage point, as you can see from the photos below, tall Bill can see a lot more of the stage than short Jen! 

Friday's Julie Fowlis show (my view)

Julie Fowlis (Bill's view)

I also took a very short video, but my old iPhone 4s was starting to die and wouldn't take longer than 5-second video clips for the rest of our trip. 

The headliner for Friday night was the Red Hot Chile Pipers. They are a band with 4 or 5 bagpipers who cover lots of rock and roll tunes. They were fun, but once you've heard 20 minutes of hard rock bagpipe covers, you've heard 'em all. We were pretty exhausted from dealing with the rain all day, so we called Friday a done deal and headed back to our room.

Friday night's Red Hot Chile Pipers

Listening to the Pipers

SATURDAY

Most of the bands we were familiar with played on Friday, so Saturday was all about finding new bands to enjoy. One of the bands we really got a kick out of was Talisk. The guy in the center is currently the reigning 'young musician of Scotland' which is a very high honor. He mostly plays the concertina, a small accordion-like instrument. And let me tell you, he rocked that concertina! 

Saturday's Talisk concert

Another new find (to us) was a band called Breabach. They were half-way done with their set when we heard them, but we really liked what we heard. When we got home we ordered two of their CDs and have enjoyed them so far. Again, lots of traditional yet inspired folk music using fiddle, guitar, pipes, accordion, and bagpipes.  

Saturday's Breabach concert

We had been to a Rura concert back in our neck of the woods and, although we really enjoyed their music, noticed there was considerable tension within the band the night we saw them. They seemed to be getting along better at the festival, but then again, we never got too close to the stage on this particular session.  

Saturday's Rura concert

And then it was time for the final festival headliner, a Scottish band that has been around over 20 years, Runrig. Haven't heard of them? Well, we hadn't heard of them either, but the majority of the people on the island were absolutely going mental with anticipation to see them live. 

Runrig - the final headliner. 

We grabbed a spot within the tent (it was raining again) way back by the technical equipment. The band was all right, but when you've never heard the songs before, you kind of wonder why everyone's going bananas when certain songs start. 

A few beers were consumed

We had our final beer, enjoyed the first half of the Runrig concert, and when the rain settled down to a light mist, decided to call it a day.

Runrig

We made our way out of the festival grounds before the mad crush of humanity and walked through the slick mud-soaked grounds back into town and beyond to our BandB.

A very muddy end

I found this short video put together by the fine folks at HebCelt. All of the photos and music are from this summer's festival. Bill and I have watched the video several times and although we see lots of things we saw live,  we couldn't spot us in any of the background shots. It's still a fun video that gives a good feel for the festival. Enjoy! 

The Calm Before the Storm

The main reason Bill and I headed all the way up to the Isle of Lewis was for the annual Hebridean Celtic Festival, a 3+ day festival of celebrating music from the Hedridean islands as well as mainland Scotland. The festival has been getting bigger and bigger and this was its 22nd year (I think). Unfortunately, it was the first year for the weather to be absolutely miserable. The rain started in earnest on Friday and pretty much kept coming off and on all day Saturday and Sunday. 

That doesn't look good.

We stayed at a BandB about a mile from the venue site and it was a very easy walk to and from… unless it's pelting it down with rain. Before we left the BandB on Friday our host suggested we walk to the local Crofters (a tiny home depot type store) and pick up some wellies. 

We got our wellies and made our way over to the Lews Castle in Stornoway as we were told it was recently renovated and had a nice little museum as well as some lovely rooms to see. Since the music didn't start until 3:00, that sounded like a lovely adventure to start our day.  

Lews Castle

The castle museum didn't allow photographs, but it was really interesting. The Islanders had recently received back from the British Museum eight pieces of the Lewis Chess pieces that were found in a cave in Uig (where we had our boating adventure) and they're very proud to have them on display. 

Dining hall at Lews Castle

The castle itself hasn't been a home in many years. Most recently it was a college, but even that closed in the '90s. Now renovated, it sounds like the powers that be want it to become a tourist sight as well as a wedding and/or conference site. 

Dining hall at Lews Castle

It was a beautiful site, and it was a nice place to hang out for a few hours until the music started playing. Unfortunately, the weather outside was looking more and more dire. 

Tippy top of festival tents

We had looked around the castle and its museum and even had tea and biscuits in their tearoom before we decided to go down to the festival tents and start looking around. It was 2:00 and surely all of the craft and merchandise tents were open for browsing, right? 

Another view of the tents

We walked the ten minutes around the castle to the festival area in the rain. No luck; gates don't open for an hour. And the rain is coming down harder and harder. We each had a rain jacket, but this rain was coming down sideways, soaking our jeans and dripping down into our wellies and there was no place to go. We ducked under a small awning for a moment and Bill suggested we walk back into town to the shops and look for waterproof trousers to wear over our jeans. By the time we arrived at the shops in town the shelves were picked clean of rain gear and we were dripping wet. 

So we walked back to the residential area to the small Crofters. Thankfully it hadn't been overrun with too many tourists and we were each able to buy waterproofs that mostly fit. We hiked back to our BandB, peeled off our soaked jeans & socks, hung them over the radiators, put on dry jeans, socks, our new waterproofs and our now muddy wellies and walked the mile back to the festival. 

And then we made a bee-line for the beer tent and finally went to see some live music. Whew!

Isle of Harris

The first day of the music festival we had tickets to see the band Fara play down in Harris. The Hebridean island we were on is divided into two; the northern half of the island is the Isle of Lewis and the southern portion is the Isle of Harris. Have you ever heard of Harris Tweed? Well, the Isle of Harris is where it comes from. 

My, your wool will make a lovely tweed waistcoat!

Bill and I decided to spend our day driving down and around Harris to do some sight seeing, tweed shopping, and photographing until our dinner reservation at 6:00 followed by our concert at 7:30. 

A dry stone wall in Harris

Although the entire Isle of Harris is rather barren and a lot of it looking the same as the mile back and the mile ahead, it is truly breathtaking. 

Bog cotton

The northern most part of Harris is dominated by low-lying scrub, rolling hills, and marshland that blurs into lakes. 

Harris landscape

Harris hillsides

And sheep. Lots and lots of sheep roaming freely. Sometimes we'd come around a bend in the road and there would be a half dozen sheep just sleeping on the warmth of the road. Often times they moved, but there were a few big guys that looked up at us as if to say, 'Nope,' and we had to maneuver around the lazy sheep. 

Can you see the sheep?

Lake. Big lake.

The place was simply stunning and we kept stopping for photographs. I found it funny that this was the one weekend a year that the island is the most populated and there were barely any folks on the road. 

Photographing the photographer

More of Harris

As we travelled farther and farther south, there were more and more lakes, the scrub became more sparse, and the rocks more prominent. 

Harris lake and hills

At one point we followed a little off-shoot of a single-track (yet intended for bi-directional traffic) road towards a sign for Premium Harris Tweed. We wound back and forth along a landscape that looked more lunar or scorched earth than present-day Scotland. We arrived at a small village of six houses, one of which had a sign out from for Premium Harris Tweed. 

Scottish Thistle

Bill and I were dubious, but we pulled over and walked up to the house. The front door had an Open sign on it, so we knocked as we entered. We heard dishes clatter in the sink as we said a tentative 'hello'. A gentle young man came out and showed us around the sitting room that was all done up as a show room. He was wearing the exact style of waistcoat that Bill had been searching for all week! It was a beautiful dark blue wool waistcoat (vest, for my American readers) with wool as the back panel instead of the typical silk or satin. Bill bought the waistcoat and a jumper and he was so very happy! 

Typical Harris view - or are we on the moon?

The photo above was taken from where we parked our car and in the photo below you can see our view from the little hill we hiked to have our little lunchtime picnic. 

Our lunchtime picnic spot

We headed down, around the bottom of Harris and then up along the southwestern edge to check out St. Clemens Church just outside of Rodel. The church was built sometime in the 1400s for the chiefs of the Macleod Clan of Harris. It was a catholic church for about 150 before it went into disuse after the reformation. Even after the reformation, it continued to be a burial site for the Macleods.  

St. Clements Church, Rodel, Isle of Harris, Scotland

Macleod tomb marker

Macleod tomb marker

The church's back garden

Around the back of the church you could see the sea and, as always, sheep. This Western side of the Isle had been the easiest landing site for invaders as the eastern side's waterways (between mainland Scotland and the Isle), known as the Minch, is and always has been very volatile. 

Sheep in church back garden

The walkway up to the church has its own creepy charm. 

St. Clements Church

We then headed up towards a small port town where the ferry runs between Lewis/Harris and Uist, another of the Hebridean islands. We were an hour early for our dinner reservations so we walked around and took some more photographs. 

Crab nets at the end of the day

Boat in need of some TLC

Later that night we saw an excellent, excellent concert by Fara. But I'll save all of my concert-related comments for a separate post. Stay tuned!

PS Fun fact: The symbol for Harris Tweed is the oldest documented trademark in the world!