Van Life Day 10 - St Kilda

What an amazing day. We were on only the second boat out to St Kilda this year, with 10 others. We had no rain and it was mostly sunny. The wind even died down when we were on Hirta, the main island where people lived it is thought for thousands of years, till 1930 when the remaining few residents asked to be evacuated.

St Kilda rises out of the Atlantic Ocean, forming the last outpost of the north-west edge of Europe. The boatman said it is 50 miles from the Outer Hebrides. It took just over 2.5 hours to get there. On the way a shark was sighted (but not by me). The puffins bobbing on the swell then flapping their little wings furiously to take off out of the water were joyous to watch. However only 4 of us were inside - the others felt too sick and stayed outside in the cold.

After being put ashore by Zodiac we were met by a National Trust person who told us the museum etc were Covid closed. We were able to go into the schoolroom and church which had a list of all the ministers from the 16th century.

Luckily it was a fine day so we headed along “the Street” where the ruined houses were. There were a few that had been re-roofed and made habitable for the NT people, the archaeologist and the researcher from Edinburgh University who is studying the Soay sheep. There’s a military installation for radar tracking for the rocket range on South Uist at the high point. The workers used to be from SERCO but are now from another company. The old accommodation the had is being removed and more eco-friendly buildings with turf roofs are being constructed.

We climbed steeply uphill to get a view back down to the island and over to Dun the island with the biggest colony of puffins in Britain, about 140,000 puffins. From the too we saw this island, Boreray, breeding station for 60,000 pairs of gannets. In all about about 1 million birds breed on St Kilda. We spotted some scary great skua.

We had 4 hours exploring Hirta before the boat took us on an amazing trip through very rough water to see the high stacs of Boreray. It was excitingly rough as the boat negotiated the narrow passage under the steep cliffs which were teeming with birds. I got soaked which meant a very cold wet ride back over the increasingly white horses. We got back just after 7.30 pm after Angus the boatman had given us a tot of whisky to warm us up. What a day. I’m sure we’ll sleep tonight!

If you are interested in finding out more about St Kilda and its fascinating history, please google - I’m needing some food!