Ancient Rocks and “Ancient” Monuments

– of vastly different time scales –

Goodbye to Skye

Three nights on an island seemed like it would be enough time to explore everything, but it’s really just two full days. We spent them well, but it seemed too short. This morning we ride the ferry across The Little Minch to Tarbert on Harris Island in the Outer Hebrides. Time to catch up on the blog! Turned out the WiFi was not good enough on the ferry, so we watched the scenery.

We left from the town of Uig, shown here

About a 1.6 hour ferry ride away from the Isle of of Skye led us to Harris, an island of the Outer Hebrides. So different! Here, the rocks are felsic, like granite in composition. And Precambrian in age, estimated to be about 3 billion years old. Unlike Skye, only a few trees dot the Harris area, but the beaches are renowned. Many tourist information sheets say that the beaches in Harris would be very popular, if only the weather were warmer.

Clear outcroppings of Lewisian gneiss near the beach.

Glacially smoothed, massive outcrops of Lewisian Gneiss at the beach

Sand patterns

Sand-clogged estuary leading into the beach

On the way back from the beach, we stopped to see this landscape. The bridge in the background is the Scalpay Bridge, linking Lewis and Scalpay islands.

Lewisian gneiss covered by a layer of vegetation, surrounded by lochs and bays.

Another big difference between Skye (part of the Inner Hebrides) and Lewis and Harris (part of the Outer Hebrides) is the visibility. The Island of Skye is called the Misty Island – for good reason. Skye is the only place I have visited where it was windy and foggy at the same time. So far in the outer Hebrides, on Harris anyway, although it’s cloudy, it’s not nearly as foggy. You can usually see a long way.

The Callanish Stones, on Lewis, are near vertical slabs of Lewisian Gneiss set up by Neolithic peoples. We visited two of the groupings.