All the way to the Butt of Lewis

We discovered yesterday that the cause of our weather troubles was the tail end of Hurricane Bertha...by now sitting out over the North Sea...so it wasn't surprising to find that we had another wet day in store. Still, as bad as it was for us, it was much worse for mainland Scotland so there was nothing for it other than pulling on the water-proofs and getting on with it.

Still raining over the hills of North Harris

Water pouring down out of the hills in torrents

Today we would continue yesterday's drive up the west coast of Lewis...so that first meant a rather long drive to get back to the Callanish Stones. A little further up the road is Carloway Broch, an uniquely Scottish form of fortification that is about 2000 years old. This particular broch is the best preserved example of a double skinned stone construction...and fortunately the rain held off for long enough for us to get out and have a look.

Dry enough to get out of the car...just

Carloway Broch

After Carloway, we continued heading north until we eventually came to Port of Ness, the northern most town on Lewis. Not much further north is the Butt of Lewis, the island's most northerly point. To put that into context, at that point we were almost as far north as John O'Groats back on the mainland. Having driven that far north, we braved the gale that was blowing and got to go look at the lighthouse...and find the nearby geocache of course.

Port of Ness...at low tide

Butt of Lewis lighthouse

Wet, wild and windy at the Butt of Lewis

With nowhere to go but south, we started retracing our travels back towards Harris but taking a more direct route through Stornoway...the largest town on the island and the biggest town we had been in since leaving Aberdeen three weeks ago. We a little look around the town before continuing on our way back to Finsbay...after all we had another of Allan's wonderful dinners to look forward so we didn't want to be late.

The harbour at Stornoway