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A fortnights holiday, our first week was on Harris, I think Harris is the place for us when it comes to wedding anniversaries, we did an Island hopping tour of the Outer Hebrides for our silver and spent a lot of time exploring Harris and Lewis really enjoying the feeling of something different compared to the rest of the U.K, there's something special about the raw beauty of the landscape that we enjoy.
A trip to St Kilda was something we've always wanted to do, somewhere even more remote with beautiful scenery, an interesting history and a walk that would give us different views of a unique environment
On the way up, just as we'd crossed the Skye Bridge, we received a text message from the St Kilda trip organisers,
Sea Harris to let us know that our original trip booked for Monday 1st Aug had been cancelled due to high winds around the Archipelago that would make the transfer from the boat to the jetty difficult or impossible
would we be ok for Sunday 31st July instead? needless to say we texted back with a very definite yes! although it was going to be a case of unload the car and then to bed once we'd got to the cottage, we just couldn't say no to the change of plan (as it turned out, all the trips for the rest of the week were cancelled due to the weather so we were very lucky)
We had a very long trip up from home, 17.5 hrs altogether, this was due to the Uig (Skye) to Tarbert ferry being delayed due to technical difficulties but we got to our little cottage in Tarbert eventually, tired but thankful
Sunday dawned, out of bed early, breakfast then set off for Leverburgh at 06:45 to make sure we got there in time for the 07:45 trip to St Kilda, the road was deserted we arrived in Leverburgh at 07:25, plenty of time, brill
The weather was superb, it was warm with a very light breeze and hardly a cloud in the sky, this was going to be good
When we got to the jetty we met the crew and chatted to some of the other passengers then we were off.
We were soon on our way
The trip over was choppy to say the least, 2.5 hrs of bouncing off waves, nobody was sick but there were a couple of green faces, I was one of them
Eventually we started to see interesting things.
We arrived in village bay, there was a cruise ship anchored in the bay and other trip vessels transferring people to the jetty, more importantly the water was like a millpond. After a radio communication with the people in charge on Hirta it was our turn to go, we couldn't wait.
Because of the Avian flu outbreak we had to walk over a mat with disinfectant in it to help stop the spread of the virus, then we were given a short welcome talk about the islands the history, the sea stacks the bird population and species and the do's and don'ts by one of the National Trust wardens on the island after that we were free to go exploring
We set off to do the WH route straight away, it's a well described route and with the weather being fantastic we could follow it easily.
It was busy with visitors from the cruise ship, we could see a snake of people climbing Conachair
As we climbed towards The Gap the snake of people going up had turned into a snake of people coming down
by the time we'd reached The Gap they'd all passed us and we had the hill to ourselves
We had a good view of Boreray
and the climb to the summit
The climb to the top is steep but the views were worth the (many) stops we took to take photo's, well, that's my
excuse
we stopped at the wreckage of the Bristol Beaufighter that had crashed on the island in June 1943.The view across to Oisebhal was good from the climb to the summit, we would have liked to have visited that summit but were aware that the time we had might have forced us to cut short our time in the village.
We didn't encounter any Bonxies, wrong time of the year we concluded, there were solitary ones here and there but they weren't aggressive. The warden told us that we may see some dead birds on the hill, the ones that were victims of bird flu, he said not to touch any you see and report it to the wardens, luckily we saw none.
There's a large cairn at the summit of Conachair with great views, we could see the route ahead and the masts on Mullach Mor so after a break we set off for them. Looking back to this walk as I type I wish we'd gone to the trig point lower down, I forgot it was there so we missed the better views over Village Bay
We started down to the bealach passing Cleits as we went, these stone built storehouses are all over the island, they were used by the islanders to store their harvest of birds and birds eggs crops etc over the year.
We arrived on Mullach Mor with its 20th century constructions, a complete contrast to the Cleits, they're a bit of an eyesore but they do seem to fit in in a strange way
From the masts we followed the track down to the bay, snapping photo's as we went.
Towards Soay
and Dun
The village
When we arrived at the bay we had a long break for lunch before we explored the village, the view from the bay was lovely.
After lunch we set off to take a look at the village and have a saunter down the street in front of the cottages.
All the cottages have plaques with the names of the last inhabitants of each one as they were in 1930
even though the majority had no roof the general fabric of the buildings was in good condition, a well preserved example of life more than 90 years ago. Next to some of the cottages there's the remains of the blackhouses that were there even further back in time and on the hillside above the village there's the hundreds of Cleits used by the villagers to keep their food preserved.
A view from one of the doorways, that would be nice whatever the weather
After we had looked at the village we went to have a relax on the grass just above the bay and waited for the next highlight of the trip which was a tour around the Sea stacks and a look at the sea bird colonies.
Sheep
Hmphhh, wish the tourists would go home
At 15:30 we set off for the Sea Stacks, what came next was spectacular, a visual treat that I hope some of the following photo's will convey, all I can say is they're much better in reality, I would highly recommend this trip to all who yearn to take it
The Gap
Soay
Stac Lee
Lots of Birds
Stac an Armin
Boreray
Stac Lee
Not sure?
Stac an Armin
Caves, Boreray
After being treated to the stunning visuals we started the trip back to Leverburgh.
Last look back to Boreray and St Kilda
This was a much better crossing than the outward one due to us travelling with the flow rather than against it, I even managed to have a nap, most unlike me especially when I'm on water
Denise and I hope to make this trip again some time, if we can't we won't be bothered though, it is a trip of a life time, any successive trip won't be quite the same as the first, we were very lucky with the weather and the company, the whole experience was spot on, we'll highly recommend it to anybody planning to go
