Day 1: Journey to the Western Isles

“There, laid out far below you, still miles away but radiating its life and beauty across the intervening air, is something else… no longer the sour, tweedy dun of the acid moorland and its ribs of gneiss, but an unmatched set of the most beautiful colors in the world: the iron gray of the Atlantic transmuting into dark blue, then paler blue, then a dazzling, flickering turquoise which from time to time flashes pure white as a breaking wave slowly unfolds onto the white sands of the most perfect beaches in Europe. It is a vision of paradise seen from hell… It is the sort of place, as you walk these miles of empty beach, as the wind blows in off the Atlantic, where you remember again what the point is of being alive.”
 - Adam Nicholson
Foreword to Seasons on Harris

“Her voice rang around the rafters of the church, clear and pure and unaccompanied. The doors were open so that those outside could hear her, and in the still of this sad grey morning, her voice drifted out across the loch, a plaintive lament for a lost friend and lover.”
- Peter May
The Chessmen

Ten years. That’s how long this one has been in the works. Ever since I started planning our first (engagement) trip to Scotland in 2015, I’ve had my eye on the Outer Hebrides, the long, rock-strewn, water-bound archipelago that represents the pinnacle of wildness on Scotland’s western coast. At that time, it seemed so far, so unreachable and lonely, and we didn’t have the time to make the ferry crossing and do it justice, so we settled for gazing at its distant silhouette from across the Minch, standing one evening at sunset on the western tip of Skye. Later that week, in the National Gallery in Edinburgh, as I gazed upon giant oil paintings of Hebridean landscapes, my heart was filled with longing and I vowed someday to be back.

So you can imagine my emotion as we approached the Isle of Lewis, passing over the long stretches of unbroken moorland studded by little lakes and lochans, flying by crystalline sandy shores, and finally gliding down onto the tarmac of the little airport in Stornoway. It’s been a long overnight stretch of travel for me, with two connections in Heathrow and Glasgow, but I am thrilled to finally be back in northern climes. In the one-room airport terminal, I quickly secure my bag and my rental car keys and head out into windswept, overcast, but bright and beautiful afternoon.

After settling into my blood-red Kia Ceed (which I name La Pasionaria, after a republican woman-leader in the Spanish Civil War; in case you haven’t noticed, the personification and naming of the rental car has become an impressionistic, spontaneous affair for me over the years). I carefully navigate my way (“on the left, on the left, on the left…”) into town to pick up groceries at the local Co-op supermarket. It’s a crowded, bustling place on this Saturday afternoon, as most of the local folk still get their shopping done before observing the Sabbath on Sunday. I pick up the usual: fresh fruit, bread buns, cheeses and yogurts, juice and milk to-go, some canned vegetables to go with dinner, a tin of hot cocoa mix (a treat which I feel I fairly deserve tonight), those memorable custard tarts (how I haven’t missed them, since they are nearly identical to what the British and Portuguese contributed to Southern China’s dim sum scene), and hot chicken and shepherd’s pies from the bakery counter. Then, it’s off on a long drive southward to the hills of North Harris, where I’ll be staying for three nights in a fishing hut by the water.

Along the way, I contend with La Pasionaria’s spectacularly annoying lane assistance settings, which keep jerking me this way and that way on the curving, narrow island roads. I pull off by the roadside several times to take my first photos of this vast, haunting island landscape. Climbing past the forests near the Ardvoulie Estate along the shores of Loch Seaforth, the road suddenly brings me face-to-face with North Harris’ mountain walls, which look impressively moody in their afternoon finery of dark clouds and scattered light. A final left turn toward Loch Màraig, and I arrive at my new home.

In the fisherman’s hut (little more than a tin-roof shed on the outside, but furnished so comfortably and cozily on the inside), I get settled in and have a bite to eat while taking in my surroundings. There’s no Wi-Fi and precious little cell service (I am able to sneak a rare text out to let Jane know I’m okay), so it’s a perfect place to spend a few days off-grid, enjoying the island scenery and soaking in my solitude at the water’s edge. After a brief rest, I head back out in the early evening and continue along the narrow track beside the loch (a former post route, now built into a road) up the hills and through a valley, past a series of dark, clear lochans studded like beady gems beneath the shadow of Tòdun. Above the village of Rhenigidale, I step out to photograph the wild coast, the hamlet tucked against the hillside, and the blooming gorse and early heather. In the distance across the water, I can make out the faint but unmistakable outline of the Shiants; and how nice it is, finally, to see them from the other side of the Minch, which is wind blown and tempestuous today, as it so often is. After taking in the stormy views and wandering down to the village youth hostel, I retrace my way back up the post route, stopping along the way to document the views. The hills to the west are completely cloud-socked, and soon rain begins to fall. Back at the hut, I take an early(ish) night, and after making myself dinner and showering, I finally fall into deep sleep after nearly thirty hours of continuous travel, to the sound of rain gently drumming on a tin roof.

Day 2: Island at the Edge of the World

“Most of all I remember the Hebridean light - sparkling off the roiling surf in the turquoise bays, crisping the edges of the ancient standing stones on a lonely plateau overlooking the loch, making all the colors vibrant with its intensity and luminosity - making the place just the way I knew it would be… Pure magic.”
 - David Yeadon
Seasons on Harris

"I see the land where I was born,
land of heroes in my eyes.
Though ‘tis hard and stony,
I ne’er will turn my back upon it.
From the ocean’s waves,
the most beautiful sight of all,
land where I was born.”
 -’Chi Mi’ N Tir
translated from Gaelic, traditional song of Harris

I’m awakened in the middle of the night by birdsong, a twittering outside my bedside window in the dark fisherman’s hut. It’s a plaintive, sweet, and beautiful song, likely from some kind of plover, which nest in the springtime beside the lochs and little lochans here in the isles. Rising from my incredibly deep and restful sleep, I listen to the sound, and it seems almost magical. It is always wondrous - the call of a bird I’ve never heard before, symbol of a landscape so unfamiliar to me. Or maybe, probably, it’s just the jet lag. Unable to fall back asleep, I get up to read, journal, and review yesterday’s photographs. After an early, delicious breakfast out of my store-bought provisions (pain au chocolate, a cup of hot chocolate, raspberry yogurt, and delicious slices of smoked Orkney cheddar), I set out in the dark to photograph sunrise on the west coast of the Isle of Harris (Na Heiradh).

In the gloaming of pre-dawn, Loch Máraig looks like a gemstone glowing in the darkness from the highway above. I wind through the hills of North Harris, pass through the sleepy town of Tarbert, and climb cross the rocky spine of the main island. To the east, the colours of first light are beginning to appear over an expanse of rock and water that resembles a moonscape. It looks like something from the very creation of time, a primordial place, so much so that one is tempted to think of it as wild and uninhabited - but one would be wrong. Crofters have wrung lives out of this blasted, acidic soil for generations, especially since the Clearances of the 1800s. But that is a place for tomorrow. On this morning, I descend through a broad pass onto the west coast, and am greeted by the sweeping sands and lush green machair of Luskentyre (Lósgantair). Though my dawn destination is at the very southern tip of Harris, I cannot help but stop the every few miles to photograph the blue hour as it develops over the sands of Seilebost, the braided salt marsh besides Northton (Taob Tuath), and the hilly pass descending into Rodel (Roghadal).

In Rodel, I park the car beside St. Clement’s Church, which was constructed in 1528 as the sanctified burial ground for Clan MacLeod, the finest remaining example of medieval architecture and stonework in the Western Isles. To get a better view of the area, I follow a sheep path off the road and clamber up a hillside, briefly crossing into a deep, squishing peat bog to do so. From above, I photograph as first light falls on the church’s stone tower, and wander around the upper moorland. To the north, the mast of a radio tower looms over the treeless expanse, and to the south, colourful bands of clouds are developing over the Minch, and the hills of northern Skye are visible in the distance. After sunrise, I eventually descend back to the village. I stop in examine the graves around the church, and to see its austere interior. I am alone here; a pair of beautiful, moss-covered sycamore maples is growing over the church’s stone wall.

Back northward, this time stopping at Northton to take a long walk along the coast toward a ruined 16th century temple (Rubh An Teampaill) and to climb Ceaphabal (“Bow-shaped Hill” in Norse). Heading out from town, I pass through a sheep pasture and cross onto a beautiful expanse of machair. This fertile, grassy ground, which in the spring is covered with wildflowers and grazing sheep, is found only here in the Outer Hebrides. Its unique ecosystem is linked inextricably to the sea: marram grass growing on a bed of limestone sands blown by coastal winds onto the acidic soil; beaches to soften the impact of waves upon the dunes; kelp beds to provide nutrients to an intricate food web; a complex community of sandflies, passerines, waders, gulls, and all sorts of marine and migratory birds. The machair of the Outer Hebrides is in danger of being completely disappearing into the sea as anthropogenic climate change continues to take its toll. As I cross the grass, I watch a pair of breeding northern lapwings circle the sky to the north, silhouetted against the mountains of North Harris, the male making its dizzying, dancing flight and its characteristic cries. The pair swoop down to harass some oystercatchers in the marsh, who have probably inadvertently made their way too close to some unseen nest.

Toward and then beside ever-looming Ceapabhal, I make my way to the old temple on a headland overlooking the coastline, photographing the breaking surf, the oystercatchers prancing through the grass, and the distant isles of Shillay, Pabbay, and Berneray. Alone on the headland, I stop to rest inside the old temple’s stone walls and gaze out the window where the altar once stood. To the east, a stunning view of mountains and machair, and golden coastline. Then, it’s time to retrace my steps, turning northward onto the rocky flanks of the mountain, over a stile across barbed wire fence, and steeply, steeply upward. A golden eagle soars overhead, its wings catching the updraft off the mountain as I labor upwards, going over big granitic boulders and layers of gneiss and schist. It’s a grueling climb, but at the end, I am treated to sweeping views across the coast of Harris, and out to sea. A weather front moves in as a descend back to the car, bringing with it light flurries of rain. In the pasture, the sheep are awake and socializing loudly, and the spring lambs are suckling and playing in the rich, green grass.

Further north, I stop to photograph the church cemetery in Scarista, and after eating a picnic lunch in the car, I cross the sandy beach at Nisabost and climb the machair dunes to reach MacLeod’s Stone. I photograph an old couple wearing tweed coats and holding hands as they gingerly stroll down the beach; between this and all the mama sheep with their lambs, I think of Jane and miss her. It’s late morning now, and after further scouting adventures at Seilebost and Luskentyre (including the most picturesque burial ground I have ever seen), I decide I’ll return for sunset on the beach near the Seilebost schoolhouse, and make the long drive back to the hut to eat lunch and shower. Above the loch, Clisham (An Cliseam), the tallest peak in Harris, has finally revealed its stony face after being shrouded menacingly in cloud ever since my arrival - but it is destined to vanish again before the end of my afternoon nap. I sleep solidly through the bleating of the nearby flock and the pitter-patter of passing rain showers.

In the early evening, after dinner, I set out again to the west coast, stopping briefly for photos along the expansive moors above Tarbert. Parked again beside the Seilebost school, I visit the schoolhouse and photograph its playground before wandering down to the beach. The tide is in flood now, and the earlier gigantic expanse of golden sand has been transformed into a series of turquoise breakers which come one after another, slamming into the grassy dunes. I carefully set up well behind the edge of the grass, lest my camera gear and I become victims of coastal erosion along with the machair. Sunset is a somewhat muted affair, but I spend the next hour enjoyable photographing the wave action, and watching wisps of colour develop in the towering clouds over the mountains of North Harris. Then, it’s back in the car and back to my bothy to tuck in for the night.

Day 3: The Golden Road

“I have felt at times, and perhaps this is a kind of delirium, no gap between me and the place. I have absorbed it and been absorbed by it, as if I have had no existence apart from it. I have been shaped by those island times, and find it difficult now to achieve any kind of distance from them. The place has entered me. It has coloured my life like a stain. Almost everything else feels less dense and less intense than those moments of exposure. The social world, the political world, the world of getting on with work and a career - all those have been cast in shadow by the scale and seriousness of my brief moments of island life.”
 - Adam Nicolson
Sea Room

“From there the road rose steeply, carved out of the mountainside, a spectacular view opening out below them of the black, scattered waters of the loch. The mountains folded around them, swooping and soaring on all sides, peaks lost in cloud that tumbled down the scree slopes like lava… And then, suddenly, as they squeezed through a narrow mountain pass, a line of golden light somewhere far below dimpled the underside of the purple-black clouds that surrounded them. A tattered demarcation between one weather front and another. The grim gathering of cloud among the peaks fell away as the road descended south, and the southern uplands of Harris opened out ahead.”
- Peter May
The Lewis Man

An early start. Rain is drizzling as I wind up the now-familiar road from Loch Máraig to the highway. This morning, my goal is to explore the rocky eastern coast of Harris, of which I only got tantalizing glimpses the day prior. I’ll be driving the Golden Road, a winding, single-track road that connects the old crofting communities along the coast. So named because of the cost of construction, as well as after the economic prosperity that it was hoped the road would bring the region, the Golden Road has failed to deliver on that latter front. Nonetheless, what it does deliver is an memorable morning of exploration and photography, as I visit a series of small villages and townships - by turns lovely, quaint, and uniformly hardscrabble - at the break of dawn and throughout the early morning. I’m following a series of coordinates I’ve plotted down ahead of time to various stops along the sinuous road - mostly places where the lane widens to allow oncoming cars to pass one another - but the morning offers its fair share of surprises as well. All in all, I luck into amazing conditions for photography: a clear dawn gives way to changeable light and weather. Passing rain clouds descend onto the coast from the mountains to the north and west, offering mist and drama. And far to the west, I can see the bold outline of Skye’s Trotternish Peninsula, where Jane and I concluded our island tour almost exactly nine years ago. Paired with this weather, the scenery - of derelict crofts, ruined stone foundations, stony slopes, and shimmering ponds and lochans - produces one of the finest photography experiences of my lifetime. As of this writing, done contemporaneously from Harris in my journal during the early mornings of jetlag and the spare hours of midday, I am having trouble thinking of a finer one. I have always written about how I love island geographies and communities. This morning’s images, of a totally bygone yet still somehow thriving human community on Na Heiradh, should speak for themselves.

My sunrise tour traverses the coast between the communities of Drinishader and Manais, sometimes following the Golden Road and sometimes veering off on foot onto grassy trails between the lochs and the coffin road that bisects the island (so named because it allowed villagers, after funerals in the rocky east, to hand-carry their beloved deceased several miles to the fertile, soft ground of the machair in the west - hence all the cemeteries yesterday and none today). Like the previous day, I’ve eschewed my usual modus operandi - the carefully selected golden hour destination where I plop down with a tripod, a light breakfast, and a lengthy timelapse. Instead, the morning is an agile, moveable feast of photographic compositions from throughout the region, as I quickly move (sans tripod and with image stabilization on) between location and location. Although the road is winding, and it takes time and care to traverse the single-lane track safely, I manage to capture a variety of images in the precious early hours of the morning. Something draws my soul to these island places, where the ruins of the past and the living history of the present are hopelessly, closely intertwined with the changeable light, the oceanic weather, the salt air, and the endless, biting wind. These are the places where hope and love cling on in the hardest of conditions; you can feel them through the viewfinder.

At nine o’clock, with the sun brightening the landscape quickly, I return to the highway and stop in Tarbert town (and what a quaint and cute little town it is) to buy gifts at the Harris Tweed company store: leg warmers, socks, and a lavender wool cardigan for Jane; a matching robin’s egg blue cardigan for myself; wool socks (in several sizes, up to 4-6 years!) and a wool pullover (with a red tractor!) for Jordan; a wool scarf, a birthday gift for a friend; and the obligatory trip magnet). Then, after a pit stop at the local petrol station to fuel up and buy a sandwich for lunch, I make the brief drive to Glen Meavaig in North Harris, passing by more coastal views and a farm with adorable island cows.

At the head of Loch Meavaig, I suit up for a walk up the glen, to the golden eagle observatory beneath the walls of Sròn Scourst. It’s a straight-line walk of just over a mile and a half, but the tempestuous mountain weather (rain, then sleet, then sun, then hail and more rain in the space of half an hour) as well as the imposing mountains enclosing the glen make this a far more dramatic experience than the trail itself would prescribe. Head down and rain hood on, I walk straight forward for what seems like an interminable time, passing by an area of reforestation efforts and crossing over a stream (Abhainn Mhiabhaig) on my way up the valley. To take a few photos of the scenery, I try the umbrella-inside-backpack-strap setup that I perfected on Vancouver Island, but what worked well in Cascadia proves to be no match for the vicious mountain weather of the Scottish isles; I am nearly blown sideways before deciding to never open an umbrella on this trip again. At the eagle observatory (a simple one-room hut with glass windows at the foot of the mountain, I have a brief sit and sign the guest register. With no sight of the area’s pair of nesting golden eagles, I retrace my steps back down the glen, admiring some of its unique flora (such as the ubiquitous bristly haircap mosses, heather, and dog violets).

At the car, I sit on a stone wall overlooking the nearby loch as I eat my lunch (a prawn salad sandwich along with my usual bag of car snacks - bread, dried fruit, and a drink). Then it’s back home to the hut to rest for the afternoon. I am hewing quite well to the photographer’s bimodal sleep schedule, and becoming quite familiar with the rhythms of Loch Máraig outside my door. At the mid-day, the tide is going out, and the gulls and oystercatchers are hard at work, foraging for their own lunches out on the mudflats. I watch them for awhile before climbing into bed.

In the early evening, back into the car for an exploration northward - now ranging onto the Isle of Lewis, contiguous with North Harris and the largest of the Outer Hebridean isles. My first stop is at the Aline Community Woods, a rare stretch of jack pine forest (in fact, one of the few woodlands anywhere in the Outer Hebrides). Here, I take a brief ramble along the forest trails and circle the boardwalk beside Loch na h-Aibhne Ruiadhe - but not before I move my car to the overflow car park because the island’s emergency services personnel are conducting some sort of training exercise (I later bump into them on the lakeside boardwalk, wearing full uniform, big smiles, and carrying a dummy mannequin torso). I take photos of the late afternoon light playing on the hills of North Harris, and some scenes by the water’s edge. Here in spring, the heather and eared willows are beginning to bloom and bud. Feeling sentimental, I circle up to visit the nearby children’s playground before moving on.

I’m driving further north and then east toward the head of Loch Seaforth, a massive sea loch that slices into the southeastern coast of Lewis before opening out to the Minch at Rhenigidale, which I visited two days prior. First, though, I make a roadside stop to photograph the evening’s beautiful light conditions near the tearstone-shaped monument to the Bonnie Prince Charlie, who escaped this way shortly after his disastrous defeat at Culloden. After fleeing this way to the shores of Loch Seaforth, the royal fugitive was conveyed southward throughout the Outer Hebrides to Benbecula, from where Flora MacDonald of South Uist famously rowed the Bonnie Prince to Skye, disguising him as her maid.

My sunset tour continues with a derelict house in the township of Ballahan - a location that I spotted during the preponderance (read: years) of research and planning that went into this trip. Then, it’s back to the turnoff toward the head of Loch Seaforth. The road here, a narrow single-track with scarce passing space, winds up over an expansive moorland studded with ponds before descending to the hillside overlooking the sea loch. Here, I stop beside the ruined foundation of Clan MacKenzie’s old castle, built in 1620 by Kenneth MacKenzie and inhabited by his successors the Earls of Seaforth, who ruled over Lewis for 200 years. The evening light is stunning, and from a distance, I photograph the interplay of light and colour in the clouds above the loch.

Sun is setting now. I return back over the moors, stopping one last time at a roadside broch-monument built to commemorate the men who tried in court for conducting the Pairc Deer Raid in 1888, an illegal and intentionally very public hunt to protest the clearance and eviction of the Pairc district’s residents to make way for sheep farms and deer forests. Life was hard on Lewis not so very long ago; in my mind, I wonder how modern Hebrideans see the tremendous history imbued within the island landscape, being just a few generations removed from the hardscrabble folk who fought and loved fiercely in order to eke out lives here on the edge of the Atlantic. From the top of the broch, where there are numbered stones taken from the homes of the six ringleaders, I photograph the final colours of sunset overlooking the moors. Then it’s back to Loch Máraig to eat dinner (shepherd’s sauce with brown sauce, salmon, and corn - all sourced from the grocery store), pack, and spend a final night. All in all, it’s been a fantastic day of photography - the best single day I can ever recall in my entire life, in terms of light and weather conditions, and the quality and quantity of compositions. Harris has treated me well, but it’s time to move on to Lewis for the remainder of the trip.