Driving North again along the West coast, we headed up to the Butt of Lewis, a beautiful location for crashing surf and rocks. We had the area to ourselves until we headed up to the lighthouse, where we met a family scattered across two cars, also driving Skodas. (One of the other drivers commented to us about it being a Skoda convention.)
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From the Butt we headed East to Dun Eistein, the Morrison "castle," which is truly just a pile of rocks on a rocky seastack, but at one time was the Morrison stronghold. The place was inaccessible when we first came to Lewis in 1998. Since then, a steel bridge has been built across to the seastack, and we took the trail to the bridge and went across to explore the island. I think this was one of the high points in the trip for Wayne's father, who seemed to find the ancestral home inspiring - it's hard to imagine anyone surviving in those rugged conditions. The winds here were pretty strong, and Mom felt safer holding on to someone so she wouldn't blow off the seastack!
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Leaving Dun Eistein, we headed back West to see St. Moluag's Church. A border collie ran out right in front of the car, and Jo found that the brakes on the Skoda work VERY well! Doggie and people are all doing fine. We found the church, but it was closed, so we could only look at the outside and peer into the windows. From there, we headed across the inland road to Stornoway, looking for lunch. We were well past the normal lunch hour, and found we had to stop in a fish and chips take-away shop to get anything to eat at that hour. We took the food to the park in the middle of town, a picturesque place with benches surrounding several models of important things to Lewis, including a croft house and some standing stones. After eating and a little shopping, we found the tea shop open in the public library - we just came in as they were closing, and they let us order a nice, relaxing tea and biscuits.
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We decided to spend a bit more time around Stornoway, taking in the other two land uprising monuments. One is on Eye, just next to St. Columba's church, which we also visited briefly. This monument is for a battle on 1/9/1888, which I find easy to remember since it is exactly 100 years before our wedding date. The second monument is in Gress. Then we returned to our B&B to prepare for a night out in a Lewis home - we got to visit friends for tea!
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We have these wonderful friends, Justin and Laura, who live in Tolstachaolais, not too far South of Carloway, on Lewis. We met them when Jo came here to take a harp course in 2002. From the day we met them, it feel like we've known them forever - they are so easy to talk to and friendly. It totally thrilled us that we were able to work out getting together with them while we were on Lewis this trip. They kindly invited Wayne's parents to their home with us, and gave us an incredible meal, and gifts. Such hospitality is hard to believe! We had a wonderful visit with them and stayed much later than we should have. This was a superb evening for all four of us.