a warm welcome

The house we are staying in on South Uist belongs to friends who live near us at home. When we arrived late last night, there was a welcome note for us and another one especially for Jess, with a couple of treats as well :-)

The house is at the head of Loch Eynort, and has wonderful views out over the loch towards Beinn More. It’s perfect for birdwatching and for looking for seals (which we have seen) and otters (not spotted yet).

This morning we went to the museum at Kildonan but found it shut for renovations, so visited the Co-op instead to stock up on food. D was so excited to find Sacla Free From pesto at half price that we bought 18 jars!

In the afternoon, the weather improved, and we walked out under a big blue sky to the furthest western point of the island, Rubha Àird á Mhuile, where Atlantic waves crashed onto the rocks. Nothing but sea for thousands of miles between here and Labrador.  (see extra).

We also passed a couple of interesting archeological sites - Dun Mhulan, an Iron Age broch and the mounds of settlements at Bornais which were occupied from the late Iron Age to the Viking Age in the 12th century. When I was researching these later on, I read that archeologists had found wooden tools made from a kind of wood called tamarack, which grows in Canada, and with holes made by the teredo mollusc, which lives in waters far warmer than those around South Uist. Imagine a tree falling into a river in Canada 2000 years ago, floating down the coast to the Caribbean, into the Sargasso Sea and finally into the Gulf Stream to arrive on the shores of South Uist where it was brought ashore and made good use of….


On our return inland, the rain started and we were rewarded by some beautiful rainbows over the loch (second extra).