As you saw in yesterday’s pictures, the weather was glorious, a perfect tribute to the Summer Solstice. The daylight was 19 hours, which we needed to fit in all those Geology stops. We enjoyed our night in Tongue, then this morning we drove northeast to pick up a ferry to the Orkney Islands.

The geology of the main island, Orkney, where we will be staying for 3 nights is mundane, all flat-lying Devonian sandstone deposited in a large, freshwater lake. On this island, we are looking for cultural sites and activities. 

We wandered around the town where we will be staying, Kirkwall, then drove to a 5,100 year old Neolithic Cairn, Wideford Hill Chambered Cairn, “where the living communed with their dead”. To reach their ancestors, the Neolithic people had to journey from daylight into darkness. The signs invited us to do the same, but we were not tempted. 

We continued down the road to a sourdough bakery and pizza parlor that we read about long before we arrived. The small, cozy place was great for dinner. 

This morning (Friday) we got up early to catch a ferry back to the mainland, to Ullapool in Northern Scotland. From there we drove to Tongue to sleep where we slept on our 2013 Geology Field Trip.

Much of today’s driving was along the North West Highlands Geopark Rock Route, which also has the Pebble Routes (smaller sites, usually including short walks). Some of the Rock Route, we travelled 11 years ago on a Geology Field Trip, but other parts were new.

The geology of the Northwestern Highlands is complex, with rocks from many different eras in time. One of the stops along the Rock Route expressed it concisely:

Take steps 100 million years back in time to see where Scotland lies: 
100 Mya. Scotland is under a shallow sea.
200 Mya. Dinosaurs ruled Scotland. 
300 Mya. Scotland is near the equator. 
400 Mya. Scotland collided with England. 
500 Mya. Scotland is part of North America. 
600 Mya. Scotland is near the South Pole.

With all this smashing of continental landmasses, today’s blog will be mostly pictures with captions.

In addition to the main Rock Route in northwest Scotland, the geopark features many Pebble Routes for side trips on secondary roads. We departed the Rock Route at Loch Assynt to drive the Assynt Pebble Route through the towns of Stoer and Drumbeg.

Beach at Keoldale, south of Durness

In the morning on Wednesday, cloudy but not foggy, we drove to the Blackhouse on the west coast of Lewis. This showed how people lived in the past century, up until the mid 1900s.

People lived in stone houses with little ventilation for a long time in the past, similar to what we saw at the Highland Folk Museum on our first day. A peat fire in the center of the house issued smoke up toward the ceiling, where it stayed a long time, smoking the meat for preservation. If you stayed in the house very long, you smelled like peat, too.

The house was long and narrow, partly because the animals were also sheltered there. Peat smoke prevented intrusion of many insects, and the animals helped warm the house. It is difficult to imagine the variety of odors in the house which would presumably be masked by the peat fire, which was kept burning continuously.

Several structures in various states of ruin were at the same site.

The last building was preserved from 1967. This made us feel old – we remember some of these artifacts and they are now in a history museum?

Lews Castle

The Lews Castle in Stornoway, in view of our hotel. Its blocky structure tells us that this is a much more recent building than others we have seen so far on this trip.

We toured the Lews Castle using an augmented reality app and learned much of its history.

The rooms on the first floor are open for viewing, but the upper floors have been converted into private apartments. The castle was built by Sir James Matheson after he bought the whole island of Lewis in 1844. In the 20th century the castle was used for housing soldiers in wartime and later as a school. In the 1990s the castle was declared uninhabitable and fell into disrepair. It was renovated with an added museum and cafe in 2006.

– 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.

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.

Sand patterns

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.

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.

Stornoway

We booked two nights in Stornoway, the largest town on Lewis. We went for a walkabout.