Another beautiful day today: blue skies, cool breeze – divine. We were on our way to the Blackhouse Village. I’m not sure how to pronounce their name is Gallic, but it’s spelt Na Geàrrannan Baile Tughaidh The history of this area is pretty amazing. It’s almost like an Amish community without the religious twist. They didn’t get electricity there until very late on. Basically they were the first ‘suburbs’ really, of little houses. And the land was crofted – I’ve got some pictures where you can see the strips of land that are kept in strips to this day. People actually lived in these houses until the 1970s, when the last inhabitants, basically older women whose children had left for the big smoke and whose partners had died in the war or similar, had moved out. Today, the buildings are maintained as they were for visitors and some of the houses are used as youth hostels for revenue. 
I digress. On our way, we passed through Braghar Bho Dheas, who have their name on the map because a local man (whose house just happens to be on the main road) found a blue whale mandible on the shore one day with an unexploded harpoon still stuck in it. Now, it would have been quite an old bit of beachcombing find. He took it home and, of course, it exploded in his shed. Luckily, he made it out alive and well. So the whale jaw now grace his front gate and tourists like me stop by and walk all over his garden to take photos of it. Bet his wife loves that. Can you believe there are websites dedicated to this find!
Before we got there though, we stopped by the Shawbost Norse Mill and Kiln, where we saw the old houses that people used to live in and how they used water to turn machines to grind the mill.Then after that we went to the Blackhouses. There we learnt the history of the world renowned Harris Tweed. Yes! This is where the Harris Tweed originated! Rather than explain it all in my own words you can read about the history of the Harris tweed here. There is an actual definition of what Harris Tweed is because – get this -- there is a 1993 Act of Parliament passed to ensure that only the genuine Harris Tweed has the insignia of the Harris Tweed Association on it. Naturally, I had to buy a shawl. I deliberately bought a brown one to capture that whole ‘natural’ feel of the wool and where I was. To be honest, genuine Harris Tweed feels like the potato sack Snooza beds that Bowen and Luka have. I can’t imagine that I would wear it directly against my skin.
At the Blackhouses we saw the looms and watched a lady weave a sample of the tweed – can you believe that their tie every single individual strand of wool off by hand when they change the colour or bring in the next batch of wool? It was amazing.
We also watched a lady make traditional corncakes on the peat fire. My goodness those peat fires smell really nice. I actually got a fair bit of vertigo standing in the little old house listening to the lady talk about what the lifestyle was like in the village. The floor was sloped and the walls weren’t and my eyes and ears and head was getting confused. So anyway. A really great time was had there.
Next stop, Dun Carloway (Dún Chàrlabhaigh) Broch. It’s a pretty amazing structure. You have to imagine that it used to look like a beehive so it was virtually impossible to climb. The legend was that the clan Morrisons were stealing clan MacAulay’s cattle, and when they were discovered, the Morrisons ran and hid in the broch, which was supposed to be impenetrable. Donald MacAulay somehow managed to climb the broch by sticking his knife in between the rocks and climbing to the very top where the air-hole was and dropping in some smoking heather, and smoked the Morrisons out of the broch. We tried to work out where the steps would have led to. There were some pretty tight climbs in between the walls. But managed to get through. So that was a bit of fun.
We also stopped by the Calanais standing stones. That was cool. It’s actually been built in the form of a Celtic Cross. Once again, very much like the other standing stones experiences I’ve had in Scotland.
We caught a ferry from Tarbert to Uig, where I, of course, slept for the entire journey. Once in the Isle of Skye, it was just amazing and beautiful scenery all around. We were just surrounded by gorgeous mountains that they call Cuillins. These mountains have been the settings of many movies, one of them being Highlander.
We went through the Faerie Glen, where Dave-the-tour-guide told us of the folklore of the faeries who live in the area. We climbed up to one of the little streams in the glen and drank the very refreshing water. He also told us of the story of the Old Man of Storr, which was sad and sweet. Wikipedia will tell you it’s just a rock formation. But apparently he was a lovely old man who had his wife turned into stones by the faerie folk because they wanted to keep her with them, and he couldn’t live without her so he had himself turned into stone as well so that he could be forever with her. Apparently until recently when the Old Lady of Storr fell down, the two rocks that stood atop the mountain were identical in almost every way.
Skye is MacDonald and MacLeod land, and Dave-the-tour-guide took us to a bridge and river where he told us the story of the great war between the MacDonalds and the MacLeods over the one-eyed girl. But his story didn’t match up with any of the readings I had done about it. And no, my research didn’t consist solely of Edna’s ‘history’ books. Ah well. I guess most tour-guides don’t expect that we would actually go back and read up on the stuff he says… still…
As mentioned before, the mountains of Skye are amazing. What’s absolutely brilliant is that you can see very distinct rock types in the mountains, such that one particular group of mountains are mainly basalt and black, and another group are granite and red. There are several Munros in the area as well.
We stayed in Kyleakin that night. And being our last night, we dance our feet off to a live band and had a wonderful time. Highly memorable. I think the band’s manager loved it too because he took a lot of photos of us dancing to the music. All of them blurry.
At the Blackhouses we saw the looms and watched a lady weave a sample of the tweed – can you believe that their tie every single individual strand of wool off by hand when they change the colour or bring in the next batch of wool? It was amazing.We also watched a lady make traditional corncakes on the peat fire. My goodness those peat fires smell really nice. I actually got a fair bit of vertigo standing in the little old house listening to the lady talk about what the lifestyle was like in the village. The floor was sloped and the walls weren’t and my eyes and ears and head was getting confused. So anyway. A really great time was had there.
Next stop, Dun Carloway (Dún Chàrlabhaigh) Broch. It’s a pretty amazing structure. You have to imagine that it used to look like a beehive so it was virtually impossible to climb. The legend was that the clan Morrisons were stealing clan MacAulay’s cattle, and when they were discovered, the Morrisons ran and hid in the broch, which was supposed to be impenetrable. Donald MacAulay somehow managed to climb the broch by sticking his knife in between the rocks and climbing to the very top where the air-hole was and dropping in some smoking heather, and smoked the Morrisons out of the broch. We tried to work out where the steps would have led to. There were some pretty tight climbs in between the walls. But managed to get through. So that was a bit of fun.We also stopped by the Calanais standing stones. That was cool. It’s actually been built in the form of a Celtic Cross. Once again, very much like the other standing stones experiences I’ve had in Scotland.
We caught a ferry from Tarbert to Uig, where I, of course, slept for the entire journey. Once in the Isle of Skye, it was just amazing and beautiful scenery all around. We were just surrounded by gorgeous mountains that they call Cuillins. These mountains have been the settings of many movies, one of them being Highlander.
We went through the Faerie Glen, where Dave-the-tour-guide told us of the folklore of the faeries who live in the area. We climbed up to one of the little streams in the glen and drank the very refreshing water. He also told us of the story of the Old Man of Storr, which was sad and sweet. Wikipedia will tell you it’s just a rock formation. But apparently he was a lovely old man who had his wife turned into stones by the faerie folk because they wanted to keep her with them, and he couldn’t live without her so he had himself turned into stone as well so that he could be forever with her. Apparently until recently when the Old Lady of Storr fell down, the two rocks that stood atop the mountain were identical in almost every way.
Skye is MacDonald and MacLeod land, and Dave-the-tour-guide took us to a bridge and river where he told us the story of the great war between the MacDonalds and the MacLeods over the one-eyed girl. But his story didn’t match up with any of the readings I had done about it. And no, my research didn’t consist solely of Edna’s ‘history’ books. Ah well. I guess most tour-guides don’t expect that we would actually go back and read up on the stuff he says… still…As mentioned before, the mountains of Skye are amazing. What’s absolutely brilliant is that you can see very distinct rock types in the mountains, such that one particular group of mountains are mainly basalt and black, and another group are granite and red. There are several Munros in the area as well.
We stayed in Kyleakin that night. And being our last night, we dance our feet off to a live band and had a wonderful time. Highly memorable. I think the band’s manager loved it too because he took a lot of photos of us dancing to the music. All of them blurry.
An amazing time had today. Click here for more photos with commentary.
No comments:
Post a Comment