Checked out of Oransay and drove short distance through Loch Druidibeg RSPB reserve to Loch Sgioport with the aim of snorkelling and bothering the wildlife. Tarmac road ended and we drove the car down a steep bumpy track, parked, and walked down to the water’s edge. There were the remnant posts of a ruined pier …
Went to Bornais and walked out to the headland past Viking remains that were not evident and a Pictish broch which was. Saw a short-eared owl hunting over the machair. Lots of lapwings, including young. Saw seals hauled out. Got mobbed by terns. Saw the world’s longest earthworm. Drizzle, on and off throughout. Drove to …
Rained all day. Lie in and late breakfast. Went to Lochmaddy museum. Very interesting exhibition on local geology – learnt about Gneiss pseudotachlyte: a rare igneous formation formed by intense metamorphic pressure. Found here along the Hebridean fault, and in meteor craters. Also a the museum was an exhibition of photos of the dull celtic …
Needed to swap rooms today because the lodge only had two nights available in the good room, so checked out after breakfast. Followed a path up the hill behind the lodge, to a stone circle, then climbed to the top and back round the other side to look at a 5000-year old chambered cairn, Barpa …
We met local wildlife guide Steve Duffield (http://www.western-isles-wildlife.com) in the Lodge car park at 9am. A few minutes after we set off, we had a good view of a short-eared owl flying about. Apparently they’re common here. We drove to an old pier near Lochmadday and spent an hour and a half watching a mother …
Got the 9:30am ferry from Uig. Sunny crossing with views of gannets, arctic skua, puffins, guillemots. Porridge for breakfast on the boat. From Lochmaddy we drove around the northern edge of Uist. An uneven low-lying marshy landscape with lots of pools (lochans). At RSPB Balranald we had bread and cheese for lunch in the car. …
Porridge for breakfast, then left hotel at 9am for drive north. Out of Glasgow we followed the edge of Loch Lomond. Sky and loch and road were uniform pewter-grey, everything else was verdant green with purple foxgloves all the way. Coffee stop at Tyndrum, then through low cloud and rain up over the great undulating …
Looked in the one-room piping museum, attached to the hotel. Had a go on the bagpipes. Harder than it looks. A group of Japanese schoolchildren arrived, and they all had a go too. Lovely. Got the subway train to Hillhead, and walked in a pleasant neighbourhood past red sandstone university buildings to the Kelvingrove Art …
Google redirected us through rural Shropshire to avoid a motorway accident, so we drove for an hour through green lanes passing fields of crimson poppies iridescent in the morning sunlight. M6 was slow, as always. At Glasgow piping centre hotel we were met with a complementary glass of Glenfiddich, and have a poky room with …
Through sunshine to our usual Shropshire stop-over, The Raven hotel in Much Wenlock. Pint, meal, wander around the village.