Blackhouses and Harris Tweed

Well we enjoyed our Lewis adventure! I'm glad we took the car. The original idea was to use our free bus pass which would indeed meet the Ferry but we would arrive at 8pm on Saturday-not a good idea without a car! Our destination was 20 miles or so south-no bus at that time of night (and no buses at all on the Sabbath).
Our cottage was part of a scattered hamlet with a view over the sea-loch and very comfortable and well equipped. I had been told that there were two churches about 4 miles away -one Free Kirk with a Gaelic service at midday and English at 6pm and a Church of Scotland- same times but English at midday. Well we found them almost within hailing distance of each other and if we hadn't been told we would have thought we were in the Free Kirk! No music, 2 psalms sung rather waveringly (by me anyway) a lengthy prayer and more lengthy solemn sermon about the serious preparation needed to prepare ourselves for the Holy Communion service next week. Most of the 50 odd congregation wore black and black hats for the ladies.and no-one even the Minister, actually spoke to us as they disappeared in their cars.
We had seen a sign to the Inn at South Loch- good coffee and welcome lunch too!

Another day we went West to see the famous ancient stones of Callernish and visited the Blackhouse village

The ancient monument is very different from Stonehenge; smaller stones of
different composition, and many more
of them in an interesting formation. It was a cloudy sort of day as you can see.

We went on to find the Blackhouse village only one of which seemed to be partly original. We had hoped to visit the 'real' one on view at Arnol but did not find the time. However the village had a museum where we watched an interesting video of the cutting, drying and storing of the peats. We also watched one of the few traditional weavers at work.

We went south to Tarbert and also explored one of the famous Harris beaches on the Atlantic side. It was long and empty of other people though there were the remains of a sand-castle! The sun shone for us and only when we had regained the car did the rain come in.
We enjoyed Stornoway and found people friendly and helpful especially at the garage which replaced brake-shoes on the rear wheel the evening before we were due to leave!
And we also saw a play -'Lord Arthur's Crime'- apparently based on a story by Oscar Wilde and performed by the 'world famous' Stornoway Theatre company.'Just back from a world tour' my neighbour told me- adding that the hero was played by his dentist (or was he an optician?). It was a pleasant evening nonetheless.