Farewell to Lewis

Tràigh Mhór. A magnificent sweep of sand at Tolstadh. This is close to where the road from Stornoway ends in the north east of Lewis. Here I have given the Gaelic names where generally I have used the English ones. Tolsta is the English. We heard no Gaelic until our fourth day. That was from two ladies visiting to promote the language in children's nurseries. Later we heard next to none. But the public promotion of the language abounds. In the seventies, on the mainland, the only evidence of it was on Free Church notice boards. Now the O.S. maps and all road signs have the Gaelic names. Direction signs are still monolingual so we go not know the Gaelic for the commonest sign, Passing Place. The only tourist unfriendly experience we found was the use of the language on street signs in Stornoway. the tourist maps shows all streets with the English manes but the passing motorist finds local signage is large letters of Gaelic with small English letters beneath. One cannot as a tourist read this in time to turn if necessary. Back has the most north westerly pharmacy in Britain. I was surprised to find this rural pharmaceutical outpost. I thought the last pharmacy would be in Stornoway but this one is several miles to the north. I just had to enter and greet the proprietor, a lady from Newcastle who had left the English rat race behind. The van is the courier with the daily delivery from the wholesaler in Glasgow. In the distance is the Eye Peninsula. We visited the lighthouse there thinking there would be peace and quiet but it was a noisy cacophony as the buildings now house dog kennels.

Lighthouse, Rubha Robhanais/Butt of Lewis. The most northerly lighthouse in the Western Isles. This was around 9pm on the Tuesday of our second week. My last Lewis picture is the most northerly point on the island. Even on a calm evening sizeable waves from across the Atlantic were smashing onto the rocks. The name of this place leads me to ask why are the Hebrides upside down? Here at the north of Lewis we have the butt. Where is the head? Barra Head is the most southerly point of that island in the south of the island chain. So the Hebrides have their Head in the south and Butt in the north.