Outer Hebrides - Days 11, 12 & 13 - Lewis

I arrived in Stornoway, the largest town on Lewis and in the Outer Hebrides (actually, the only area that anyone anywhere in the isles calls a ‘town’ - as in if you’re going from Barra to ‘town’ they think you mean Stornoway) on Tuesday afternoon and spent the evening in town wandering around, re-familiarizing myself with it and having dinner at An Lanntair (the lantern), the local (AMAZING) arts centre which faces the harbour. On Wednesday morning, I got up early and took a long walk around the Lews Castle Grounds which is basically the city park now that the castle belongs to the municipality and they’ve converted part of the building into a college and the other part into a museum. The grounds are interesting, some of it has been turned into an extensive golf course but that’s laced through with walking and mountain-biking trails that are left to grow wild. When the castle opened up, I had a coffee in the cafe and then went to the museum - Museum nan Eilean - which shows extensive interactive exhibits related to all aspects of life and culture on the Western Isles including the Viking invasions, crofting lifestyle, Harris tweed industry, shipbuilding and relationship to the sea, etc. I meant to just swing through but I ended up spending almost 2 hours there. After lunch, I made my way by bus to the ‘Uig’ area to go to Lewis’ only whisky distillery Abhainn Dearg (Red River) for a tour. My original plan was to ask the bus driver to drop me off in Timsgearraidh a couple of miles away and walk over to the distillery so that I could check out the Uig Sands and bay area but it was pouring the rain so I had the driver drop me off at the distillery. Very interesting very small setup - it’s unlike any other distilery I’ve ever been to because it’s a very niche operation, a labour of love of one man, Mark Tayburn, and for that reason you can really see and make sense of the whole process of milling and distillation and maturation because it’s all in the same space whereas in the larger distilleries it’s a bit ‘cleaner’ and more opaque and you feel removed from it. After the tour, I called a taxi to take me up to the Port of Ness area at the very northern tip of the island for a dinner and evening of music at a B&B called The Decca. You will never find friendlier people than taxi drivers in the Outer Hebrides. They just LOVE people and talking about the island and talking in general so I basically got a free historical and cultural tour of the ‘west side’ from a guy called Angus on the way from Uig to Ness which took about an hour and a half. He dropped me off in Lionel, just short of Ness because I told him I wanted to walk up to the Butt of Lewis before dinner which I did. I came back to The Decca where, in addition to being a B&B, Louise and Pete host special ‘evening suppers’ in the summer with different themes — the Wednesday night suppers are music-themed so after a delicious dinner using local seafood and produce, they pulled out the violin, viola, double bass, tin whistle (Pete); guitar, piano, clarsach (Scottish small harp) and voice (Louise); and a special guest of their friend Norman who played the bagpipes! A really terrific evening. Pete helped me organize a taxi back to Stornoway from their local taxi driver, Donnachaidh (Duncan), who lives across the road and he and I had a great talk all the way back to town. On Thursday, I poked around in town, having tea in the Hebridean Tea Shop and reading in the harbour before taking an afternoon bus to the Calanais Standing Stones. I came back to Stornoway and had an early dinner and crashed so I could get up at 5am for the early morning ferry over to Ullapool and then on to Inverness, Edinburgh, London and back home to NYC. I already have designs on coming back to the isles and if I do I think I will hire a car because it gives so much more freedom in roaming around whatever the weather. It’s been a great trip.