Saturday 25 May

Today we do the “touristy” bits ’cos the weather wasn’t very good; cold, windy with occasional showers. First off was the Blackhouse Village, an old crofting community that had been abandoned but then rebuilt as a museum with some of the dwellings converted to self-catering accommodation. Blackhouses were stone-built cottages with a turf and thatch roof, we suppose called black because the smoke from the peat fires turned everything black! An excellent, informative museum, for once at a very reasonable cost, kept us occupied for an hour or so.

Blackhouse Village

Just down the road was Dun Carloway Broch, a ruined, but now preserved, ancient dwelling said to date back 5000 years. There is much speculation of what they (for broches are found all over this part of the world) were used as but they are notable for their height and construction method. A friendly, small visitor centre demonstrates some theories – no charge here, unless you want a Guide Book of course.

Around the corner in the next inlet are the Callanish Standing Stones, a Stonehenge-type collection which is probably, by the number of tourist coaches we saw for the first time, the biggest attraction in the islands. We were too big to get into the car park, so stopped on the verge outside the Visitor Centre and had lunch before braving the rain and wind (don’t think the kayak and bicycle hire chap was doing much business, especially when we parked in front of his sign…)

Callanish Standing Stones

Again there was much speculation as to the purpose of the Stones (personally we think someone thought it would be funny to build something meaningless, just so in the future everybody could wonder what it was all about!). However they are impressive – there are in fact three sets within close proximity – and the surroundings are very atmospheric, worth the effort for those alone.

Chatting last night with the other motorhome, they recommended a good place to overnight, further into the SW of the island. This corner of Lewis is quite mountainous but there is a marked campsite overlooking a magnificent beach so we negotiated more of the narrow, single-track roads to Cnip (pronounced kneep) where a large area of sand dunes had been turned over to camping and caravanning, with toilets, waste-disposal etc. Although apparently not busy, we noticed a lot of young boys about, only to discover a weekend Cub Scout Camp just round the corner. Now we have nothing against kids (we were kids once!) but our idea had been to stay a couple of days and we didn’t fancy this, so returned to a wild camping spot, also recommended, just round the headland.

Cnip

And came up trumps! Fenced off parking was allowed on a small area of the machair, and all that was asked was a small donation towards it’s upkeep – no facilities of course. But the best thing was the view of the bay, and there was nobody else there!