The Isles of Harris and Lewis - First trip to the Outer Hebrides

The Calanais Standing Stones

Single track roads and fancy cars!
Not sure I would want to squeeze my
sports cars by motorhomes!

After tearing ourselves away from Luskentyre, we were looking forward to getting to Tarbert and a bit of retail therapy, not just touristy things, but essential food!  The road quality on these islands has been terrific the entire trip and, with most of them being single track roads in this rather harsh climate, we are really impressed!

We also passed more people cutting peat and this continues to be interesting to see.

They use a special tool to cut a certain depth.

We arrived at Tarbert and the first thing you see is the Harris Gin Distillery, so this was a good place to start!  What fun to be there!

Gorgeous Harris Gin bottles!

The bottles are so beautiful and there were glasses to buy that match the bottles.  I bought myself a bottle and two glasses. How could I resist?

Harris Tweed

Then, there was the Harris Tweed shop.  I bought myself a Harris Tweed backpack!  I love it and am told it will last for many years.  All the tartan in that shop was so beautiful, all the colours and choices of patterns.  If only I could sew well enough to justify working with that fabric!

I also visited the local Community Craft fair at the Village Hall.  I saw this on Facebook a few days earlier and realised we would be there on the right day!  This was fun and I found a few things I love and had to buy.  Nice to be able to participate in something so local!

We were really looking forward to getting to Tarbert for a few reasons.  One was to to stock up on food!  It was the strangest thing but there are just not many places to buy food. It seems the only grocery stores are in Stornaway and people often get their food delivered!  The distance is inconceivable for me to imagine how they keep their kitchens stocked up!  Well, it seemed inconceivable to me so I looked it up. Turns out is is only about 35 miles away or a suggested 50 minute drive!  In our experience, it would take much longer to drive that "short" distance!  But maybe it isn't as bad as it seemed to us!  The guide book warned that there were only 2 food shops in Tarbert and this was correct. They were just too small for me to find what we needed to stock up for meals. They did have some nice looking food though, even a butcher. Just not what we needed!

We had to get fuel before leaving Tarbert and it was lovely to stop at this station and get assistance to fill up our vehicle!  I can't remember the last time this happened to me.  Years ago, this was the norm!  How many people have never had assistance when getting their fuel?

Standing right in the centre!
Photo by Alan

On the way to our campsite, we stopped at Callanais or Callenish Standing Stones!  What a wonderful place to have the privilege of visiting!  The stones are visible from quite a distance since they are on a hilltop.  How thrilling to see them as we approached!  There is a reception area, wth gift shop and cafe, but access to the stones themselves is free and that is the way I feel it should be.  So the peace and tranquility and dignity of the stones is intact, but there is also a place to buy souvenirs or much needed coffee!  Perfect mix!

That salad was a work of art!

We had essentially run out of food at this point!  Couldn’t find anywhere to buy what we needed.  We had expected to stock up in Tarbert, but as I said, there are only two grocery stores there and the choices were limited and not what I needed to cook in the motorhome. There were also no shops along the way to Shawbost and our campsite!  The scenery is amazing and I truly appreciate the lack of commercialization, but we were not prepared to find nowhere suitable for us to buy food.  So we arrived at the Eileen Fraoich campsite hungry!  Asked the lovely landlady, Mary, where we could go eat and was told that no place that served food would allow a dog.  She also suggested calling Mollan's, they did dinner deliveries!  So that is what we did. It was certainly not fast food! They deliver at 7 so we waited which is ok with us, nice to have it cooked fresh!   Alan got a burger and I got vegetarian lasagna. We ordered a side salad that was absolutely beautiful and treated ourselves to sticky toffee pudding and ice cream since we were so “traumatised” at running out of food!   I can highly recommend Mollan’s. They are two lovely ladies who take pride in their work and the food was delicious.  And how lovely to have a hot dinner specially prepared for us delivered right to our campsite!!!

Both nights we were at Eileen Froich, Alan tried to get to Stac a'Phris.  This is a rock formation similar to Bowfiddle Rock in Aberdeenshire, but much more difficult to get to.   The first night, he walked away from our campsite and was gone about 2 hours, he didn’t get there, but learned how to find it. So the second night we drove as close as possible and I asked a nice local lady if I could just park outside of her house for a few hours while he tried to find it again.  This time, he saw it and now knows how to get there, but realised it was uneven footing and getting dark and there are killer sheep on these cliffs! In the link at the beginning of this paragraph I just found directions starting from a different direction! This one sounds do-able even for me.  We do want to return to this area and I could be tempted to try to go with him. There is parking near Gearrannan Village which makes it much easier than what Alan attempted to do.

We are so stunned at the beauty and variety of this area of Lewis.   Everywhere we look, we are surrounded by history, Both recent, in the Black houses and crofts, but also standing stones, remnants of Viking settlements including a Norse mill and kiln.  Then there is just the stunning scenery and wild coasts.  I know we will be back!