Last driving day on Lewis today so time to visit some spots we've not been too. First port is call is Uig and Ardroil beach, that's it - those golden sands in the distance
Another glorious sandy beach. Yes I could have taken a closer picture but that would have been marred by the several motorhomes parked at the address campsite.
The real reason for coming here is the museum at Uig and the fact that the dunes at Ardroil were the location of the island's most famous archeological discovery. Need a clue?
Yes, the Lewis Chessmen. The museum, is, like all little local museums, fascinating, telling the story of this part of the island, of course with much detailing of potatoe famine and the clearances. Really hard times for people already used to hard lives!
The museum is part of the local community centre and volunteers are manning the restaurant. Instead of the usual coffee and cake we decide on lunch proper. Just a few 100m away is a salmon smokery, so a smoked salmon fillet with home-made oatcakes was a must. Absolutely superb, and really nice to have a chunk of smoked salmon rather than thin slices. Incredible value too. Now they had a curiosity on their cake stands - home made custard creams. Not the little tiny biscuits you can buy for pence in supermarkets but a huge gob-filling thing. Almost a meal in itself and I may never fancy packet custard creams again it was so good.
But we must be moving, we have a completely new island to visit! Until 1953 the island of Bernara was separated from Lewis (known to the locals as "the mainland") by a narrow causeway. Had a bridge not been built it is likely that Bernera would be unpopulated today, such was the effort to get everything to and from "the mainland". A pre-stressed concrete bridge was pretty much a new technique in 1953 and despite being only about 35m in length it was the second longest in the world at the time. No pictures (I was driving) but Google the Great Bernera bridge should you be interested .
Despite it's flash banners the museum at Breaclete is not as large as Uig's but still not without interest, especially with a long saga about local clearances.
What we'd really like to see is the reconstruction of one of the iron age roundhouses discovered at nearby Bosta beach, but time has indeed got on, and it will be too late. But the curator persuaders us the visit will be worthwhile anyway.
Another beautiful view
I think I've mentioned how deserted these beautiful beaches are. I have titled this shot "Two people and their dog"
Despite the iron age roundhouses being shut, only the door into the dwelling was closed, unlike many other places access to inspect the building exterior was still free
One interesting mention at the museum was the Time And Tide Project where bells are located off the coast of several locations playing tide-driven music
https://www.timeandtidebell.org/
One such bell was at Bosta
But sadly the tides weren't playing it during our stay. I wonder if the bride and groom who had chosen this location to have professional photos taken had any more luck.
Before showing today's route, a mention of the drive. Much of today was on single-track roads with passing places. On some stretches the road was very narrow indeed, passing places sparce, and some right bends and step accents and descents. Driving was quite a mental effort, particularly the return journey this afternoon with islanders returning home at speed. One woman in an Audi overshot a passing place and I don't know if she expected me to reverse but she must have seen me well beforehand so I let her reluctantly reverse into the passing place she should have pulled into. Hmmm, usually passing is greeted with a hand wave not a glower.
But it wasn't all just other vehicles; we had a couple of minutes wait before this road user decided it was time to move on
The cow that is, the email is a permanent feature on our dashboard!
Today, just a couple of what seemed local places racked up 110 miles, and another tank filling, good job diesel is not too expensive here
