On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
The sand and sky in the first photo are amazing, and the sky in the next two photos, just outstanding. So calming and beautiful. Plus we get sheep! ~WaterGirl
way2blue
I visited the Outer Hebrides, off the west coast of Scotland last July. Seems a lifetime ago. My family name originates from that part of the world and I was curious to see the landscapes of my ancestors. Of course the islands are quite different now. In part because the Vikings cut down most of the forests a thousand years ago and they never recovered.
Once I adjusted to the stark vistas of peat, lochs, and rock (so different from my home of oak woodlands & redwood groves), it became quite appealing to see the sweep of the land and sky. But the most evocative sight was the abandoned villages. There’d be a village marked on the map, but when you drove through found maybe a cluster of empty stone buildings. The isles and crofts never recovered from the clearances of the mid 1700s. (I can trace my father’s lineage back to Philadelphia, 1750.)
Beach and big sky on west coast of the Isle of South Uist.
I enjoy being in the northern latitudes in June or July for the amazing sunsets that morph a few hours later into sunrises. This is a view from our cottage near Griminish at 11 PM, with a glimpse of the never ending twilight. The owner of the cottage has the same family name (slightly different spelling), and encouraged me to visit the historical museum on South Uist and a cemetery or two. The museum had a chart showing my ancient lineage from ~1000, starting with the Norse-Gaelic Somerled to ~1350 when the last clann patriarch was assassinated (a bug in the clann system).
View toward the loch from our farm stay in the village of Tolsta Chaolais at 1130 PM, again showing the amazing twilight. The roads in the Outer Hebrides are mainly single track with pull outs every kilometer or so. You develop a rhythm with oncoming traffic after a while as to who yields and who drives on; learning quickly the message of flashing headlights…
Lobster traps at the Port of Ness, a historical fishing port and the location of ‘The Great Drowning’ (Am Bathadh Mor) in December 1862 when 5 fishing boats sank in a gale, drowning 30 crew, leaving 24 widows and their children [“A national appeal raised £1,500 for the fishermen’s families, however, shortly after the donations were distributed the money was taken away as rent for the crofts they lived on”; www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-20766930].
Torn machair (a fragile soil which forms when sand is blown onto peat moorland) near the restored Gearrannan Blackstone Village.
Sheep being shorn with clippers, adjacent to the blackhouse village. (Also near Carloway Mill where warp threads are woven on looms from the late 1800s, then given local crofters who weave the weft threads to produce Harris Tweed.) You can watch Harris Tweed being woven on a traditional loom in the village.
Sheep being shorn with clippers, adjacent to the blackhouse village with a couple sheep dogs standing by in case a sheep gets a crazy idea… (We took a walk with the farm’s sheep dog one day, and he would get in these stare-downs with grazing sheep, which would spook them. When we mentioned this to the farmer he said, ‘yep, that way his dog has plausible deniability about harassing the sheep.’)
Shorn sheep after being tagged.
JPL
What a wonderful trip, and thank you for sharing your journey with us.
John Revolta
Mrs. Revolta is gonna love these pictures in the morning. She’s been to Lewis (20? years ago) and she loves it.
raven
wow
Yutsano
Lookit dem border collies! What a wonderful look into a part of the world few rarely get to see.
tom
I’ve been to the islands of Iona, Mull, and Staffa, and can’t wait to return to Scotland and the Hebrides. A gorgeous part of the world.
gkoutnik
Wow again. Thanks. I love that kind of desolate grandeur, and you photograph it very well. Took the family on an ‘ancestor tour’ through England (including The Tower) and we all talk about it to this day. So glad you had the chance to do that. Thanks again!
p.a.
Wonderful photos, thanks. ‘Griminish’ sounds like a Tolkein town name.
Wag
Fantastic photos, especially the reflected sky in the second photo.
Albatrossity
Thanks for these; that is a wonderful and evocative landscape.
Coincidentally I am currently working on a series of pics from a trip to the same part of the world in 2008, and even more coincidentally I also was interested in seeing the land of my ancestors. My great-grandfather emigrated from Scotland about a century after your relative, and we were able to locate the abandoned house and barn on the farm that he grew up on. That series should start on Mondays in a couple of weeks!
eclare
arrieve
What a wonderful way to wake up this morning. Scotland is one of the most magical places I’ve ever been, and I’ve been to Skye but not the Outer Hebrides. Top of the list for when travel is possible again…..
Thanks for sharing your wonderful pictures.
Zinsky
Wow seems to be the right expletive here…. The sky really does go on forever in that magical place. I love the expansive desolation of places like this – it really makes you think about how very small we are in this great universe. Thanks so much for sharing!
cope
Thank you for the pictures. The landscape resonates with my own Scots/Irish roots and the fact that I spent four summers in the far north of Scotland. Alas, I never made it to the islands further north.
As for the sheep, the last summer I was there, 1978, I worked with a shearing team who also used the hand clippers, not the electric ones. Being inexperienced, my job was to catch individual sheep (Scottish blackface sheep as in your pics, I believe) in the fank (pen) and drag them out to the guys with the skill to do the shearing. They let my try my hand at shearing one but the results were slow and blood specked and I gladly returned to my role of sheep catcher.
Fun fact: because of the lanolin in the wool, after a day of catching and hauling sheep by the fleece, my hands were remarkably soft and smooth.
Another side gig that summer (it was a languid summer of itinerant part-time jobs including barkeep and petrol pumper) was netting salmon out of sea lochs, a highly illegal endeavor (the English landlords would have chucked us in stir). My partner in crime and I would row out as it got what passes for dark in July and August up there and string a couple of nets. The next day at dawn, we would row back out and haul the nets and fish in. The fish we sold to local hotels and B&Bs for beer money. Our daytime wages shearing sheep went for food and petrol.
Thanks again so much for stirring all these memories of mine. That was the last wild and free summer of my life as two summers later, I would find myself married and with a child and an actual stable career.
bluefoot
These photos are beautiful. I was supposed to be in Scotland for vacation this August, but the pandemic got in the way of that. I am hoping that some time next year other countries will allow Americans in…
Miki
Adding another wow – wow.
kh
Beautiful photos!
A piece of music that fits some of them – the band is from Uist, where the video was shot:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvV2fy75v1c
Albatrossity
@kh: Thanks for that video; wish I understood Gaelic!
Miss Bianca
I visited the Outer Hebrides in 1988 – in September, so missed the long long summer evenings – have never forgotten it. Thanks for the photos!
J R in WV
Wife’s fave Irish band is Black 47, who are working class socialists.
Highly recommended, used to play in NYC bar scene, very popular with Irish union members! Songs about putting Company managers in their proper place, which I will leave to your imagination.
Great photo set, such empty space since the Lairds put the people off their land. Somehow this comment loaded before I was thru typing… go figure.
WaterGirl
@Albatrossity:
Reading that you were able to locate the abandoned house and barn on the farm that your anscestor grew up on brought tears to my eyes. What a wonderful surprise.
Origuy
@tom: I think I took the same tour. Ferry to Mull from Oban, bus across Mull to Finnaphort, small boat to Staffa, a few hours there, then a boat takes you to Iona, the ferry back to Oban. A really nice day. I got a great picture of Fingal’s Cave on Staffa.
Great pictures. I have a friend who grew up on Lewis. That’s on my bucket list.
satby
Those landscapes speak to my heart, though I’m Irish, not Scottish.
cckids
How lovely, thank you! Scotland and Ireland are at the top of my fingers-crossed *someday* list.
I’m heading out today for a (somewhat) backcountry camping trip to the Olympic National Forest. Please FSM no fires, for much bigger reasons than my little vacation.
TEL
Lovely pictures! I visited Scotland years ago, but didn’t go further north than Inverness. Even so, these pictures are bringing back memories of that trip!
way2blue
@Albatrossity: I look forward to seeing your photo essay—as usual. N.B., I have photos from Cairngorms National Park in the Scottish Highlands I hope to send to WaterGirl someday soon…
way2blue
@arrieve: For those thinking of visiting the Outer Hebrides, and who also like detective stories, I recommend reading the Lewis Trilogy by Peter May ahead of time [The Blackhouse, 2011; The Lewis Man, 2011; The Chessmen, 2012]. Lots of history woven into his stories and wonderful descriptions of the landscape.
way2blue
@cope: What a great experience. Thanks for posting. Would love to spend more time exploring the islands & the highlands.
way2blue
@kh: Perfect. Thanks.
I was fortunate to hear a fiddle & bass duo at a house concert before the pandemic shut things down. The fiddle player is from the Fraser clan near Inverness, and shared a hilarious story about busloads of Outlander fans driving through the neighborhood.
Alasdair Fraser & Natalie Haas [alasdairandnatalie.com/listen]
way2blue
@Origuy: Again. I recommend reading the Lewis Trilogy by Peter May before you go—especially if you enjoy detective stories.
kh
@Albatrossity:
another tune from the same band (possibly a cover?) still focused on the Hebrides, but with some English lyrics:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=br0bBr9Y5FM
or
https://open.spotify.com/track/2Z61khw9DoMf81BS0ib1Yb
or “The Story” from the album listing:
https://music.apple.com/us/album/osgarra/1382759013
(hard as it may be to believe – musicians get their best “per-play” payments from apple music)