Mangersta Bothy

On my final day on the Isle of Lewis the sun was shining and I went in search of a legendary location that I had heard of often, yet never seen. This was a stone bothy built into the cliffs of Mangersta, on the south-west of the island, by the parents of aid worker Linda Norgrove who was kidnapped by the Taliban in Afghanistan, and died during a botched rescue attempt by US forces.

The bothy rests perilously on a ledge just below the top of towering cliffs of granite and gneiss that are hundreds of feet high, and stand resolute against the relentless assault of the Atlantic. But where, exactly, along miles of rugged coastline this tiny shelter was to be found, I had no idea.

Driving south-west from Stornoway for about an hour and three quarters, I found myself at the end of a single track road with the wind rocking my rental car, and came by chance on a local who gave me rough directions. At the point where he told me I would have to abandon my car I parked and set off across the moor towards the cliffs. I found deep inlets where the angry sea below sent spume spraying hundreds of feet into the air. But no bothy. I headed north and found myself on my knees on the cliff edge peering over into the void. Still nothing. Then looking south, towards the next headland, I saw what looked as if it might be what I was searching for. It was a long trek back to reach my goal, but once there I still couldn't find the bothy. Until I came across a steep cleft in the cliff leading down towards a shelf littered with spoil from some long ago ice age rock explosion.

Taking my life in my hands I scrambled down into the unknown. And, then, suddenly, there it was. Almost invisible against the cliff. Clinging to the cliff face and resting on a ledge that looked down on to the broiling sea below, broken by rock stacks and jagged outcrops.

This, I think, is the single most solitary, dangerous, and at the same time restful place I have ever been.

The extra is the view from the window.