The Highlands and Islands of Scotland...(Part 2)

We continue on our trip to Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis.

We left the area of Glencoe on the last blog post and ended up at Spean Bridge for night.

On Friday we left Spean Bridge and drove toward Invergarry on our way to the ferry in the village of Uig (pronounced “oo-ig”).  The scenery changed from the more barren country of Glencoe to an area covered with pine trees and many lochs  (lakes).

We seemed to drive from one loch to another.  Everywhere we looked we wanted to take another picture.

This was the scenery in the Invergarry area as we headed to Dornie and the Castle.

We headed toward the village of Dornie and the Eilean Donan Castle  - one of the most photographed castles in Scotland.  You will find a picture of this castle on almost every Scottish Highland tourist calendar.  J   Eilean (pronounced “Ale-an”) is Gaelic for island

The Eilean Donan Castle is on a wee island.  The history of this castle site goes back at least 800 years, the present building however dates largely from the early 20^th century.  The Eilean Donan, or island Donan, is named after the 6^th century Irish saint, Bishop Donan, who came to Scotland about 580.  The island offered a perfect defensive position to the entrance of three salt water lochs.  

The island has a fresh water spring and the first castle was probably built in the early 13^th century as a defensive measure against the Vikings. The bridge to the island was actually not built until the 1930s when the MacRae family began a major restoration project. 

We left the castle and headed for the bridge to the Isle of Skye.  The scenery change again back to the similar look near Glencoe.  We arrived at the village of Uig (pronounced “oo-ig”) and boarded the ferry from Uig to Tabert.   

This was the bay at Uig while waiting for the ferry.  About 15 minutes before we boarded the ferry it began to rain.  Fortunately the sea was not that rough and we had a pretty good ride to Tabert.

This was about 1 ½ hour ride across to the Isle of Harris.  Harris is not technically an island but is connected to the Isle of Lewis.  We drove about an hour to the village of Stornoway.  The scenery was very rocky and barren. 

 This was one of many lochs on the drive to Stornoway

Stornoway is a small town on the east coast of the Isle of Lewis.  It is a very religious area and most things are closed on Sunday…which is really a welcome thing.  Saturday morning we arrived at the Church for the Workshop.  The senior missionary couple in Stornoway had been working hard to get people to attend and we were hoping for 3-4.  By 10:00 a.m. we had one person plus the senior couple.  We decided that this one person was a person out of work and in need of a job…so we did our workshop with him and the two other missionaries.  It turned out to be a great day and we were able to give a lot of one-on-one attention to our participant.

Sunday was Church.  We met the other people who had indicated they were coming to the workshop and heard their excuses why they weren’t there.  We had dinner with the missionary couple.

This is the Chapel in Stornoway.  It sits on the road right along the harbor so it is one of the first things one sees as the ferry comes and goes...all the other buildings are brown so this white building stands out.

The next post will be about Monday and our tour of the island before we return for home…