Along the Golden Road, Isle of Harris, Scotland

Even though it was a more civilised start to the morning I still woke up before 6am. After breakfast we headed out on the Golden Road to photograph all the sights along the way. While at home it is 19C and feeling like summer, here it is 11C and cold in the wind. Today we had a little sunshine and plenty of clouds which makes great skies for photography.

We stopped off at a few places to photograph the little houses but then spent the rest of the morning at Stocanais, a little harbour village where there were interesting old boats, sheep everywhere and some derelict houses. Sad to see so many derelict and abandoned houses here but it makes it interesting for photography. 

Next stop was Manish which also had many derelict and abandoned building. This image of the little loch with the tussocks was taken near Manish. We never saw anyone else, it’s so quiet here. If another car does pass by, it’s a squeeze on these narrow roads and you have to find a passing point. There are no shops, no cafes, no toilets in this area - I  had no choice but to go behind a rock … This workshop is hard as there is no coffee break or down time, mainly due to no facilities being available. Lunch was another packed lunch from the hotel eaten on a rock, trying to find shelter from the wind. Admittedly the view was lovely and we even were visited by curious sheep who wander are all over these islands. How does the farmer ever find his sheep? I am sure if you are on holiday you can find the cafes for a coffee/tea but they are so few and far between we don’t pass any on our routes, and we are here to take photos and not to relax

We stopped at so many locations today that I cannot remember all of them! The first extra was some lovely light on a white house, the second extra of the boat was taken in Manish. We continued on the Golden Road past Leverburgh, and then on to the saltmarsh at Northton we we took photos of the patterns in the plants growing there - a site of scientific interest. By now it was past 6pm and I was flagging, but we still had two more locations - we stopped off at Scarista beach, but the light wasn't very good so we went on to the next beach where we took long exposures of the waves amongst the rocks. By now it was 7pm. We finally got back to the hotel at 7.45pm, a quick freshen up and into supper by 8.15pm. It sure has been a long day and I had quite a headache by this evening, but now its off to bed for another busy day tomorrow.