Dipping Toe in the Atlantic

The trip to Stornoway was inevitable given we're self-catering for 2 weeks, so best to get it out of the way on a day when we're both shattered after the day before's exertions. Another beautiful day, but there was still that need to go to the Co-Op to stock up, and even a drive to urbanity was pleasant by taking back roads across the moors.

One advantage of heading to the capital was the chance to hit a 3G signal and catch up on the world briefly, before heading back to the past and the Iolaire disaster monument. It's the type of thing I find quite affecting - here you had a boat full of almost 300 men who had survived the traumas of the First World War hitting rocks within sight of the lights of Stornoway, with 205 losing their lives. The fact it was so close to being home; that in small communities the ravages of war on populations are so magnified; that these men, from one of the furthest away points of the British Isles, had fought for a country they use have felt completely separate from... Dying from one mistake by the captain of the ship, combined with a rush to get them home for New Year (the disaster took place on 1st January 1919). Apparently they still don't talk of the disaster on the islands.

Provisions back to the cottage and round the corner to spend the late afternoon pottering on the cliffs to the south of Mangurstadh Bay. Another boiling sea of turquoise, and it just doesn't, ever, get old.

House Sparrow
Whooper Swan
Bird count: 42