I left the Rodel Hotel this morning after 3 nights there. I really enjoyed my stay and thoroughly recommend it. Donnie MacDonald, the proprietor with his wife Dena, make you feel very welcome. Donnie is very knowledgeable about the area and its history, and is a great host. It really did feel like home from home. A very personal service. The hotel's staff wee very good as well, very engaging and interested in their guests.
I travelled up through Tarbert, through Harris and into the Isle of Lewis today. Actually, Harris and Lewis are the same island as they are connected by land mass but hey ho.
I drove to Uig in the North West of Lewis which was quite a trek. This is the area in which the Lewis Chessmen were found, it is meant to have an amazing beach and it featured in Peter May's books. It took quite a while to get there with a variety of changing landscapes and scenery on the way. I visited the wooden carving replica of one of the chessmen (you've got to say that Peter Firmin seeming to get things pretty spot on in Noggin the Nog if these chessmen are anything to go by). There isn't really very much on site to show where the chessmen were found or anything which is a pity I think. I also think it is a pity that a few are in an Edinburgh Museum and more in London. They should be in a purpose built centre in the Western Isles.
The beach at Uig was lovely, and it was a nice day again. However, after two weeks of seeing stunning beaches, one tends to get a bit blasé about them - oh really, another stunning beach?
From Uig I started to drive up the western coast of Lewis and called in at the various historic sites and visitor centres. The first of these was the standing stones at Callanish. I did enjoy seeing these. The landscape is so primeval that one can easily imagine the men and women who were responsible for creating the standing stones in that landscape.
This part of Lewis, unlike anywhere else I have been in the last 12 days, felt quite "trippy", with several coaches doing the rounds. An outcome of this is that the sites, which are very interesting and important, tended to get overshadowed by my annoyance with tourists (of which I am clearly not one).
I called on at the Blackhouse village and the Blackhouse museum, which both gave me the same feeling. I then drove up to the Port of Ness, just because I wanted to have been to the far northern end of the archipelago. The road north follows some pretty dull countryside, very flat and featureless boggy moorland.
Not only was the landscape pretty dull. Generally, the housing stock on the islands is fairly
horrible. A lot of very modest bungalows and small houses with grey peddle dash and nothing much happening. I noticed that there must be some architects doing some work in Harris, because that island had some interesting new builds including the Rock house and the hobbit house close to the Harris Golf Course http://www.borvelodge.com/room/the-rock-house/
In the north west of Lewis, there were even more abandoned houses and crofts and some really really nasty houses. Together with a featureless uninteresting landscape, the journey up to Port of Ness was not an exciting or attractive one.
I then drove to my B & B for the night at Melbost, near Stornaway. (Solas Guest House). The B & B is a lovely place, with Karen and Iain Moir being excellent welcoming hosts. As Iain is an ex butcher, who makes his own sausages, I am looking forward to breakfast!
LOVE the chessmen! X See you soon X
ReplyDelete