{"id":2919,"date":"2026-02-03T13:54:48","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T13:54:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sloeburn.co.uk\/?p=2919"},"modified":"2026-04-05T19:14:42","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T18:14:42","slug":"lewis-harris","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sloeburn.co.uk\/?p=2919","title":{"rendered":"Lewis & Harris"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

28\/06\/25 – 05\/07\/25<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Having failed to get this far when I first visited the Outer Hebrides<\/a> I came back. This time on foot as I thought getting here by bike would be a nightmare if not impossible, although I now think the Inverness – Ullapool bus takes them, although it may be a bit pot luck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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York station<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Inverness campsite<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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I think I take the same photos on every ferry crossing<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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I arrived on a Sunday so most things were closed, the Stornoway Tesco being the exception. I walked a non-trivial distance in wind and rain to a campsite marked on the map which turned out not to exist, so I wild camped on the dunes and made use of the unlocked facilities at the sports ground opposite. In retrospect I should have just set up camp in their covered stand. Thank you Coll sports club.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Super-yacht out in the distance<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Traigh Chuil<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Next day was back to Stornoway to catch a bus (well, two) down to Leverburgh at the south end of Harris. The weather was awful but there’s a little brewery\/taproom\/caf\u00e9 so I spent a pleasant souple of hours there, before taking the bus a little way back up to road so I could visit the visitors centre<\/a> at Northton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Leverburgh to Berneray Ferry<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Waiting for the next bus north and wondering around I saw what I think was a Hen Harrier catch an oystercatcher. Some other oystercatchers gave pursuit but I doubt they were successful. Next stop was Horgabost campsite<\/a>, where the weather produced some amazing light and clouds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Traigh na Cleabhaig<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Horgabost campsite<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Sound of Taransay<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The next day I took the bus north, indeed as far north as possible. The sun came out and I managed a dip in the sea at Port of Ness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Harris from the bus<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Stornoway pier<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Port of Ness<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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There’s a campsite<\/a> at Eoropie, but they don’t have any facilities. I found one of the owners and he explained that there was a sports centre not too far away and he’d leave a bike out for me so I could cycle over and use their facilities if I wanted. Unfortunately things didn’t line up with my functions, so the trowel was deployed. The place was completely mad, with weird stuff everywhere. I walked over to Dun Eistean (although the bridge was closed so not possible to get over) before and the spending the evening in strange company, listening to corncrakes and watching a short eared owl.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dun Eistean<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Crofts<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The map shows the crofts layout clearly<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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This place was…odd<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Lewis bus stops – shelter whatever angle the wind is coming from<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I got off at the Barvas turn off and walked towards Shawbost. A brief stop at a restored Shieling<\/a> before visiting the Blackhouse museum<\/a> near Arnol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Accommodation in the summer while looking after the sheep<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Restored Blackhouse<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Peat store<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Plenty of the remains of old blackhouses to be seen <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A couple of brief stops at things I’d seen marked on the map; a Broch in Loch an Duna, and a whale bone (marked as ‘arch’). In 1920 a whale’s corpse was washed up with a harpoon in its head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Broch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Got to the campsite<\/a> at Shawbost which was fairly busy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Now I was heading back towards Stornoway. The weather was bad and the bus times didn’t allow me to stop off at Callanish with anything approaching sensible timings. This was something of a bugger. The visitors centre wasn’t open, so if I stopped I would have been stuck there for hours with no shelter from the rain, so reluctantly stayed on the bus to Stornoway. It was times like this where a bike would have been so useful, and I did miss having it. The bus station did left luggage for a few \u00a3 so I was able to leave my heavy stuff there and visit the Lews Castle<\/a> and Museum nan Eilean<\/a>. They have a few Lewis chess pieces, and there was an exhibition about those who emigrated to the Americas – very sobering to see this from the point of view of these people and something a certain DJT seems to need reminding of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There’s campsite<\/a> just outside Stornoway at Laxdale (should have stayed there the first night!) which was again fairly busy but nice with good facilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ferry back to Ullapool where I camped<\/a>, again the weather was a bit unfriendly. Seems like a nice town and good to see the ferries coming and going in Loch Broom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Finally the bus to Inverness and trains back to Leeds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

28\/06\/25 – 05\/07\/25 Having failed to get this far when I first visited the Outer Hebrides I came back. This time on foot as I thought getting here by bike would be a nightmare if not impossible, although I now think the Inverness – Ullapool bus takes them, although it may be a bit pot […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,21,2,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-camping","category-scotland","category-sloeadventures","category-walking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sloeburn.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sloeburn.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sloeburn.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sloeburn.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sloeburn.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2919"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sloeburn.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3044,"href":"https:\/\/www.sloeburn.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2919\/revisions\/3044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sloeburn.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sloeburn.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sloeburn.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}