Updates from the Isles III

The next morning a lovely English couple, Andrew and Pippa, gave me a ride from the Uig hostel over to the ferry pier, which is inconveniently located on the other side of the bay and, as usual on Skye, none of the bus and ferry schedules coordinated with one another.

Destination: the Isle of Lewis, one of the Outer Hebrides, an arc of far-flung and low-populated islands further off the coast than Skye, which belongs to the Inner Hebrides. Where a significant portion of the population still speaks Gaelic!

The "Isle" of Lewis is actually only half of an island - the other half is Harris, which is likewise known as the Isle of Harris. Even life-long residents couldn't explain this to me, so I'm content to allow it to remain a mystery.

Lewis is all dramatic, windswept coast and moorland dotted with lochs. As an added bonus, it possesses standing stones! Real, true, very exciting standing stones!


Another momentous thing happened on Lewis: I rented a car.

I rented a car, something I'd never done before. I rented a car in Europe, where I'm anxious about driving, since I have next to no experience doing it here - pretty much the only time I drive is during the couple weeks each year I'm back in the US. And I rented a car in Britain, where you may remember that they drive on the WRONG SIDE.

I didn't really want to do it. But, for one thing, the Outer Hebrides are deeply Protestant and everything shuts down on Sundays - even the buses. I arrived on a Saturday and had to leave on a Monday. And for another thing, the anxious-about-driving, oh-no-I-couldn't-possibly-rent-a-car-I'm-fine-sticking-with-buses-honest-I-am thing was reaching epic, avoidance-tactic proportions, and I decided it was time to do it and break through the mental block.

So I rented a car on Lewis and I survived!


The first day of driving around alone and seeing the sights (standing stones, ancient fort, restored traditional house complete with peat fire, jaw-dropping double rainbow, lots of expanses of moor and sky and pounding coast) was fine, but for the second day, I recruited travel buddies at my hostel: Rachael, cop-in-training from Newcastle, and Tim, round-the-world traveler and blogger from Montana. The sights are a lot more fun with friends!

Together, we drove up the the northernmost tip of the island, which looked like this:


This week I'm back in Edinburgh and loving it - but that's a post for another day.