West Coast Islands Blogs
Blogs (web logs) provide an ideal opportunity to explore the traditions, culture and wildlife of Wild Lochaber. We have put together a collection of local blogs and provide the titles and text snippets to give a taste of each entry with direct links to the main blog entry on the host website. We hope you will find time to explore the full articles and further information on the host blog sites.
Please feel free to contact us if you have any suggestions for blogs you would like to see here.
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Farmer got ahead of himself after New Year and had the sheep through the fank and back to the hill quite quickly. This involves bringing all the sheep in from the fields where they have been over the 6 weeks of the middle winter. The tups are taken off, and the ewes given a...
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Here's the Tarbert terminal on Harris without the CalMac ferry in dock. Closure for five or so days is unavoidable and imminent while updated facilities are installed. So the route from Uig, on Skye, will involve crossing to Lochmaddy, on North Uist, and taking the Sound of Harris ferry. Read...
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From 1890 until 1915 a 2ft narrow-gauge railway operated along a 2.7-mile track at Lealt, on Skye, in order to take extracted diatomite to a jetty. It has recently come into the news for part of its track has been footpath which is to be removed. The story is in The Press and Journal....
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There has been over the past few years a revival of interest in the life and work of Dr John Rae (1813-1893), the eminent Orcadian, Arctic explorer. His name has been entered for a posthumous mapping award. Go to The Orcadian for details.Scottish Islands Explorer - will it receive an...
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Way back on my birthday in 2017 we took a walk up the newly repaired path part way up into Rum’s hills. The path leads up to Coire Dubh, the place where most of Rum’s houses get their electric and water supply from as there is a dam there. When we did the walk in 2017 I found it really...
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The Road Equivalent Tariff on CalMac's services on the West Coast has seen a reduction in fares and an increase in use. However, local residents sometimes have problems at peak times in booking cars because visitors have secured places well in advance. So there is a proposal to introduce higher...
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Young children on the beach at Lionacleit, Benbecula, contrast with the recent remarkable old finds by archaeologists in the vicinity. The BBC website gives full details of ancient objects unearthed.Scottish Islands Explorer - brings incidentals and images to the surfaceDigital Edition: what will...
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Here's a taste of Rum. My two favourite spots on the island are Kilmory, near the north end, and the summit of Hallival, near the top end. The hike up to Hallival, from sea-level, is a climb of 2,700 feet, just shy of a Munro. The last 300 feet is an exciting scramble up its steep, rocky...
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Here's an appeal. Scottish Islands Explorer has exhausted its stocks of the DVD compiled by the late Chris Mylne, who was a teacher and missionary on St Kilda before becoming a film producer. So if anyone could sell or direct us to a copy of his Sea Stacks and Solitude featuring St Kilda in 1966...
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It looks small and is such - Inchmarnock - beyond Bute deserves further exploration through Lonely Isles. Once 30 residents, now zilch.Scottish Islands Explorer - ready for revivalDigital Edition: ready to access
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There's something about starting the week slowly and thinking of what there is to do rather than what has to be done. Take the attitudes of Aga, for example, and follow her Worldering Around blog when it presents views of the Isle of Mull and some of its off-shore islets. It could involve going...
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The name of Jura may have come from the Norse for the 'Island of Deer' or from the Gaelic work 'diura' meaning resilient or durable. The herds of deer have been both resilient and prolific, with early writers mentioning some 300 of the creatures and the current number of around 7,000. The image...
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There's a new custom in Shetland - cross the Sound of Bressay from Lerwick and take the Parkrun. Some 40 people a week are doing just that and they are coming from far and wide. The BBC website has the story.Scottish Islands Explorer - why not run for a copy from your newsagent?Digital Edition: it...
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Here's an interesting contrast. Objections have been raised concerning the proposed building of new houses close to the Clickmin Broch, Lerwick. See Shetland News. Separately, 40 acres of land and a demolished valve house adjacent to a Shetland loch remain on sale at £60k, but without, as yet,...
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Here is an Embraer 145 aircraft which will soon appear in Loganair livery operating on Benbecula and Manchester routes. The details of the improved services are in the Stornoway Gazette.Scottish Islands Explorer - distribution aided by air mailDigital Edition: distribution at the speed of light
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We’ve been hinting and alluding to next steps in the planning and while we are still waiting for all the details to fall into place we have enough of a vision of what we’d like our lives to look like that we can share that vision. As has happened before with sharing ideas and plans on...
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I’m almost at the end of my year with the self indulgent posts (teens birthdays, end of the actual year, my own birthday) and I do have plenty of mentally half composed posts about crofting stuff and what we’re planning next but for please bear with me while I get my own personal annual...
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2019 has seen a rocket going beyond Pluto and sending back images of Ultima Thule (below). 1934 was the year when the German scientist, Gerhart Zucker, tried to send mail from Scarp to North Harris (above). His experiment failed, but was part of a project that commenced with a similar attempt,...
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This is the final Isles to Be installment - for now, anyway. The island is Sanda, off the southern tip of the Kintyre Peninsula. The island's previous owners had a go at offering accommodation and a pub. The current owners no longer do that, and do not encourage visitors. When it was operating, the...
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Ulva is recruiting … for residents with aptitude and skills. Read the report in The Press and Journal to see whether you would fit in. The island once had 800 residents and so it's accustomed to numbers, despite being down to almost single figures at present. The recent community buyout attracted...
