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.
Albatrossity in Scotland
From Uist we next headed north on the quaint one-track roads, deciphering street signs written in Gaelic, and took the ferry from Berneray to Leverburgh on the Isle of Harris. Our destination was the Galson Farm Guesthouse on the Isle of Lewis, but we made a couple of stops along the way.
The first stop was the Callanish (aka Calanais) stone circle. This group of standing stones predates Stonehenge, and is thought to be both a ceremonial site and astronomical observatory. The latter activity might be a bit frustrating in these parts, since an unobstructed view of the sky is pretty unusual.
Unlike Stonehenge, you can wander in and out of the stone circle, up close and personal, so to speak. Here is a wide view of the monoliths, from the southwest side.
There is a chamber, probably a crypt, in the center of the circle, but it is thought to have been added in 2000 BC, or about a thousand years after construction of the stone circle. When I think about the fact that this edifice was used for a thousand years and then redecorated, by people who were obviously getting by in this harsh climate, I am flabbergasted.
The monoliths are all a single type of rock, Lewisian Gneiss. This is a metamorphic rock, a granite altered by heat and pressure deep under the earth, and now exposed in various places on the Isle of Lewis. It is gorgeous, and also one of the oldest rocks on earth, about 3 billion years old (two-thirds the age of the earth).
Another stop was at the Gearannan Blackhouse Village. Blackhouses were the standard dwelling on these islands for centuries, and contained rooms for corralling the sheep and other livestock through the long winters. They were only called blackhouses when more modern houses were built on the island, which were called whitehouses. However, the inside walls, blackened with centuries of peat smoke, are indeed quite black.
The thatched roofs of these seaside houses have to be weighted down with boulders and ropes in order for them to stay in place during the windy winter gales.
An alert (but knock-kneed) Scottish Blackface ram on a Lewis pasture.
The Common Gull (Larus canus), also known as the Mew Gull here in the Americas, is a dainty and elegant gull, and is indeed common on these islands.
Another lifer, the Northern Wheatear. This bird can show up rarely in North America (there are quite a few records from the coasts, and exactly one record from Kansas), but is pretty common in the Hebrides. Wheatears (genus Oenanthe) are widely distributed in the Old World, and there are about 30 species, depending on what taxonomic scriptures you adhere to. The name has nothing to do with wheat, or ears. It is a corruption of the colloquial term for this bird, known as “white-arse” for the white rump patch that is obvious from this view.
JPL
After a restless night’s sleep ending with a nightmare, it’s so nice to wake up to pictures by Albatrossity.
Chris T.
Are those the stones that were in one of the new Dr Who series?
eclare
Lovely photos! It looks very peaceful.
There go two miscreants
That ram looks like a personification of the shrug emoji to me.
Barbara
These are great. Thanks.
Dorothy A. Winsor
What an amazing place.
Wag
Very gneiss photos of the Stone circle!
sorry for the irresistible early morning pun
arrieve
Scotland is one of my favorite countries, and I’ve always wanted to go to the Outer Hebrides. Now I really, really want to go. I love that stone circle — I trust you were careful not to touch the stones in case you found yourself 200 years in the past (Outlander reference.) I’ve been to Clava Cairns near Inverness but it’s nothing like that.
Albatrossity
@arrieve: Yes, the stone ruins on the Outer Hebrides are lots more impressive than Clava Cairns or any of the other sites we visited in Scotland proper. But an upcoming post in this series, featuring the amazing ruins on Orkney, might make you want to visit there as well!
Luciamia
@Chris T.: They do look like they could come to life.
MelissaM
@Wag: I came to post nice gneiss.
The thatch roof looks more like hay was just thrown up there and then the ropes added to hold it down. So much different than the thatching elsewhere, but still elegant with the rope twists and boulders.
Erin in Flagstaff
@Chris T.: I was wondering the same thing.
MaryS-NJ
Wonderful photos, thank you! We were able to visit Orkney last September and saw the Ring of Brodgar, the Standing Stones of Stennis and Skara Brae among other sites. I think it was my favorite place in all of Scotland.
Sab
I went to Lewis, Harris and Skye in 1976, taking pictures for my mother and grandmother whose ancestors came from there. My takeaway is that Scottish islands have some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen but I cannot even imagine trying to make a living farming there.
Falling Diphthong
The most recent Call the Midwife Christmas special was set in the Hebrides. Beautiful and distinctive part of the world.
Seonachan
This (and the post of Uist photos) brings back nice memories of my 2 extended stays in the Western Isles. I went to Callanish with some friends for the summer solstice. There were a lot of hippie/New Ager types there for the occasion, quite the contrast with the pretty hardcore Calvinist locals. In those days, at the only playground on the island, they chained together the swings every Sunday so no one could desecrate the Sàbaid.
JanieM
So beautiful, and haunting. I’ve traveled a moderate amount in my life, but far less than I would if I were doing it over again. The Scottish Islands are one of the areas I’d still love to get to, and these pictures sure do reinforce that wish. It’s funny how certain places move certain people more than others, and it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with how beautiful they are. Different strokes, I guess.
StringOnAStick
We have been talking stealing Scotland our next trip, whenever that might be. These photos sealed the deal for me and I’m going to show them to my husband.
David, do you sell your photos?
J R in WV
Pretty amazing stuff here, from the sheep, through the standing stones to the roofing. Would surely like to see inside the black houses, can understand how it would be difficult to impossible to photograph black walls.
And how easy to become depressed inside a house with black walls over a long North Atlantic winter? Wow!
Seriously, the standing stones and their age and the unknowable histories really fascinate me.
Albatrossity
@StringOnAStick: Thanks, and yes, Scotland is a place that I always wanted to get to, and once I got there, I’d love to go back again!
And I do sell my photos. If you click on “Albatrossity” at the top of this comment, you will be transported via the magic of the intertubes to my portfolio site. Take a look around those galleries and if you seen something that you’d like to own, let me know (contact information can be found on that site). If the particular image you want is not in those galleries, let me know which image from these posts is desired, and I can probably work with you on that as well.
Albatrossity
@J R in WV: We were in one of the black houses, and it had an authentic peat fire going, so it was not just dark, it was smoky. And part of the house was a corral, reserved as winter quarters for the animals, who might not survive a Hebridean winter outside those doors. Long winters, much smoke, and sharing your space with sheep and maybe a cow or two. Yikes!
But people are being mean to our president, I hear :-)
StringOnAStick
@Albatrossity: The first two photos absolutely thrill me! Let me look at your site and get back to you.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@Albatrossity: Great pix as always – thanks! And I’m going to Orkney next summer!
Uh, if the plague allows.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
Fabulous! Interesting “fun fact” on the origin of the Wheatear name. I clicked on some of the links from the guesthouse site, and oogled the birding trips and photos too. Fun that they use different names for some birds (i.e. divers in place of loons, etc.)