FACTFILE: LEWIS
Getting there Flybe operated by Loganair operates flights four times daily, Monday to Saturday, to Stornoway from Glasgow, Edinburgh and Inverness. There is also a Sunday flight from Glasgow. Caledonian McBrayne also runs regular ferries from Lewis, seven days a week Staying there Bed and breakfast at Broad Bay House starts at £64.50 per person (based on two people sharing, and dependent on the season). See www.broadbayhouse.co.uk
What to do Stornoway has a surprisingly large number of good (if expensive) restaurants for a relatively small town. Unusually for an island fishing port, there’s also a castle and extensive woodland. An Lanntair is the main arts hub for the whole of the Hebrides with a well-curated year-round programme of exhibitions and live performance, and look out for the Sounds in the Grounds Festival in Lewis Castle on Sat 22 Aug: this year’s headliner is Malcolm Middleton. For advice on putting together a sporting holiday, see www.visithebrides.com
guest library, the birders guides, binoculars and well-stocked iPod for use in the living area, in-room CDs by local folk artists with a polite note suggesting you listen to it if you have the time, to the complementary basket stuffed with coffee, wine and snacks: a far cry from the usual grudging two-shortbread-and- Nescafe combo. Then there’s the food. Our first evening is spent on the beach with a Broad Bay picnic: salad, chicken, homemade almond tart and bread, Stornoway smoked cheese and a selection of hot-and cold-smoked salmon, all from local producers. We hole up in a little smugglers’ cove with the whole expanse of the beach before us and drink toasts to the sky. The beach is deserted and, aside from occasional beams from the lighthouse across the bay, it’s very easy to believe there are only us and the seagulls left in the world. It begins to get cold round about 10pm as the sun is setting, so we clamber back, the late evening light warming and sharpening the colours of sea, grass and flowers till we can almost taste them. Or maybe that’s just the whisky we’ve procured from the honesty bar.
We stagger out of bed at 4.45am, fall into dressing gowns and pad out onto our room’s deck overlooking the sea, to watch the whole bay on fire as the sun rises. By the time we wake up again the house has come back to life and Ian is busily cooking breakfast (porridge, local haddock, home-made bread and poached eggs). Between the rain and the Sabbath we’re happy to spend a cosy morning watching the storm from behind glass, before it clears in time for a long bracing walk along a beach to nowhere. Dinner is served at 7pm; Ian is back in the kitchen again, with a four-course menu of all-organic, locally sourced produce (he trained with Nick Nairn and recently received a silver Eat Scotland award) and we sit up in those amazing windows with the bay spread before us, eating tender rack of lamb and trying to remember the names of the eight island cheeses on our cheese board, stuffed, and utterly at peace with the world.
SCOTTISH GETAWAYS
ISLANDS IN THE STREAM One thing the Islands are certainly not lacking is adventure. Anna Millar discovers some must-dos
GO IN SEARCH OF THE FAIRIES The Isle of Mull’s MacKinnon’s Cave is believed to be the deepest in the Hebrides. A winding path leads towards a
waterfall just before the mouth of the Cave and folklore suggests that it offers a passage to the underworld of fairies; the story goes that an old piper who tried to out-do the fairies in a piping competition never returned.
ENJOY A DRAM WHISKY GALORE! STYLE Inspired by the real events of 1941, when a cargo ship ran aground in the channel
between Eriskay and South Uist, Whisky Galore’s gentle, comical story of how the booty on board became appropriated by a group of Scottish islanders has long stood the test of time. Today the area is still best known for Compton Mackenzie’s timeless text, so head to the beautiful island of Eriskay and have a dram in its memory.
ISLAND HOP Not for nothing is Oban known as the Gateway to the Isles. Boasting the largest port in North West Scotland, it’s the ideal place from which to
catch ferries to the Inner Hebridean islands of Mull, Iona, Staffa, Barra, Coll, Colonssay and Tiree, the latter of which is a pretty great shout if you fancy some water play.
GET DOWN WITH THE HISTORY Situated a few miles off the north-east tip of mainland Scotland, there are an abundance of reasons to
check out Orkney. History buffs, though, will know it best for the incredible snapshot of the Stone Age that is affords. Recognised by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, visitors can wander round prehistoric villages, ancient tombs, ruined palaces and standing stones
distilleries.
MAKE LIKE ROYALTY The Isle of Islay – otherwise known as the Queen of the Hebrides – is a fine drop-in for whisky lovers including as it does eight working whisky
DEER DIARY Enjoy some memorable adventures on Jura (taken from the Norse meaning ‘Deer Island’). Today 650 deer roam around the island, vastly
outnumbering the human population which comes in at just under 200. Covering just 29 miles, it’s easy to take in the whole shebang, pit-stopping at some of the beautiful beaches along the way. 6–13 Aug 2009 THE LIST 9
h Kirstin Innes lets the weather – and an exceptional guesthouse – set the pace for a weekend hidden away from the world on Lewis
‘IT’S EASY TO BELIEVE THERE’S ONLY US AND THE SEAGULLS LEFT IN THE WORLD’