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.
Scottish Islands Explorer
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The Windhouse, Yell, is allegedly Britain's most haunted house, and tales about it are set to continue. Two skeletons, perhaps some 750 years old, have been unearthed close to the property and just six inches below the surface. Read the item in Shetland News and, if still gripped, the essay by Lynn...
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The Shiant Isles, in The Minch, look formidable enough in the winter light. However, this group wintered over as part of the RSPB's Shiant Isles Recovery Project with the intention of clearing the islands of non-native black rats.According to a BBC Report, their work is showing signs of...
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Orkney has been and is in the forefront of lifestyles. The ways of life and death of the Neolithic people there is examined in a BBC item; the increase in the amount of disposable income among islanders during recent years is featured in The Scotsman. The constructions above were state of the art...
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Seascapes, comparable to this one captured by Emma Smith on her way to Elgol, Skye, feature strongly in the current gallery of the BBC's Your Pictures of Scotland. View as soon as you fancy an escapade.Scottish Islands Explorer - water is a strong factorDigital Edition: arrives through the ether
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The weekend saw the opening of the R & B (Raasay & Borders) Distillery on the Isle of Raasay; yesterday afternoon the closure of the last bank branch on the Black Isle. The BBC covers the red-letter-day for spirits in the west as well as a black day for banking to the east....
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Here are reminders of the changing style of schools. The old schoolhouse on Isle Martin, near Ullapool, was closed in 1925 and the 'new' one (above) was built. It continued to be used (below) until 1949.Recently a group of local children were joined by school-pupils from Glasgow to help clean the...
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There is something about Glenelg - the place with the longest palindromic name in Britain - that has the feel of 'an island on the mainland' together with views of Skye. There are two properties currently on sale there with prices that are somewhat different. Knight Frank has Scallasaig Lodge...
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Yesterday's item on Cruib, Jura, brought out well over a thousand visitors, albeit to the blog not to the bothy. Take a closer look at several more comparable Mountain Bothies Association places to stay by going to a BBC Alba programme (broadcast on Wednesday 13 September...
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The Ruantallain Estate on Jura has 20,000 acres that stretch from coast to coast. One small part of it - the former stalkers' lodge built with stable and deer larder - was loaned to the Mountain Bothies Association in 2012 and is maintained by them. Cruib is south-facing on Loch Tarbert on the...
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There's a piece of land and property come onto the market on the northern tip of Mainland Shetland. It consists of Fethaland, Hooplees,Largarth and Houllsquoy, incorporating almost 100 hectares above the village of North Roe and has the postcode ZE2 9RY. Offers in the region of...
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Go to the Ravenspoint Visitors' Centre at Kershader, Isle of Lewis, and stop at the cafe overlooking Loch Eirisort. Across the water is Soval Lodge where this lone fisherman is endeavouring to make a catch or two. His chances of success are indicated in a Stornoway Gazette report on current angling...
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Whether you own a house with a view of the Black Cuillin Ridge, Skye, or have tents from different eras for wild camping, you will appreciate the countryside you are in. Readers of the Rough Guides have nominated Scotland as the most beautiful country in the world. Cameron McNeish has responded...
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On one side of the Atlantic, Hurricane Irma has been barrelling along; on the other, the Aurora Borealis has been burnishing the skies in the most striking way for decades. See the BBC website for details of the latter and the image above for light effects over Shetland.Scottish Islands Explorer -...
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The sign of red in front of the shop on Scalpay, Harris, is symbolic of the financial losses suffered by the community enterprise. Yesterday it closed its doors for good, which was, of course, bad for some the island's 320 residents. Perhaps too many of them have been going to the supermarkets in...
wondering wanderers
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Updated again for 2014. I’m leaving the previous ‘about us’ below which makes for a really long page but a nice reverse chronology account. The update below is from 2012, right at the start of our life here on Rum. We are all a couple of years older and very different people to...
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In many many ways life just now is feeling very similar to when this blog first started and we were putting together the plans for our WWOOFing adventure. Loads of emotions: uncertainty, excitement, nerves, anticipation. Lots of logistical details – back then we had the packing up of one life...
Marc Calhoun
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In the Nov 11, 2014 post I wrote that I'd yet to visit an Airidh na h-aon Oidche; a shieling of the one night. So when I was on Lewis in July I decided that the time had come to visit one. The 'one night' typically refers to some scary incident, or how someone died, on the first...
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In July I paid a visit to the site in Uig (Lewis) where they are going to build the St Kilda Visitors Centre. It lies on the clifftop a mile north of Islibhig. In WWII the site was home to an aircraft detection radar base, one of a whole system of stations built across the country with the...
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I had only visited Dunscaith Castle once, way back in 1997 (see chapter 1 of book 2). So when I was on Skye in July I decided that the time had come to see it again. From our hotel in Isleornsay I drove the A851 south. After paying a visit to haunted Loch nan Dùbhrachan (see the Sept 2, 2017 post...
Plants of Skye, Raasay & The Small Isles
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Following the discovery of Juncus ranarius (Frog Rush) as a roadside plant as well as a coastal plant on Skye by Ian Green and the Wildflower Society. I found it in two roadside places myself during my Roadside Mud expedition. Andy Amphlett and Ian have been finding it elsewhere in the Highlands e....