Western Isles - Day 13

This was our last full day. We left Shawbost and visited the ruined broch at Dun Carloway. This is one of the best preserved brochs in Scotland. You can climb the stairs inside the hollow walls.

We drove on to the Callanish Standing Stones, the most famous attraction on the whole island. The visitor centre is closed for rebuilding, but you can still walk around the stones.

There are actually two further sets of standing stones in the vicinity, known as Callanish II and Callanish III, so we walked to them too.

We travelled on to Stornoway in preparation for our ferry home. It's very busy but we found a free car park at the dockside so were able to leave the van there all day.

We walked round the waterfront, then across into the grounds of Lews Castle. It was very busy to start with as there was a Cancer Challenge run going on, but eventually it quietened down.

We watched the afternoon ferry come in, this is the same ship we'd be getting much later, after it's been to Ullapool and back.

We had a very nice walk all the way round the extensive grounds.

Back at the van we snoozed for a bit, then left Oscar and went for a drink in the Crown bar. Following that we bought fish and chips from Cameron's and took it back to the van. It was pretty good.

The ferry was a bit late coming back from Ullapool, and we didn't leave Stornoway till after 10.30. Scott managed to get a couple of hours sleep though, so when we eventually disembarked about 1.30am he decided just to drive through the night all the way home.

We got back to Dunblane about 5am on Sunday.

This map shows all our overnight stops on the trip, I think we covered most of it!

Western Isles - Day 12

In the morning we used the showers in the sports centre. Scott's was fine, but unfortunately Shirley could only get cold water from hers!

We drove five minutes up the road to park for our walk outside a large playpark and adventure playground.

We then set off on our walk round the Butt of Lewis, the most northerly point of the island. First we went west to the beach, then a clifftop walk where there was loads of pink Sea Thrift growing.

At the furthest north point we arrived at the Butt of Lewis, with its lighthouse.

After a lunch stop there we carried on to complete the circular walk. The settlements in this area are mainly crofts, with each house having a long strip of land attached. Some are cultivated and some have sheep kept in them.

On returning to the van we drove over to the east and took a short walk to Dùn Èistean, a ruined fort on a sea stack. Unfortunately the bridge across to it is closed as it's in a dangerous condition.

We drove towards the south west of Lewis, and visited the restored Blackhouse at Argol. It's closed as they're rethatching the roof. However there are other parts of the site you can freely wander about.

Further down the coast at Gearrannan is a whole Blackhouse village that's been restored, and some of them are available as self-catering rentals. We wandered around, got a talk from the guide and watched a Harris Tweed weaving demonstration.

A short way back up the coast is our camping spot for the night, a beach car park near Shawbost. Again, a £10 donation to the local community is requested. We had a walk to the other side of the beach, then settled down for the night.

We had pizza for dinner. Later there was a spectacular sunset.