Yumpu_ May_June 2017_02

Hideaways in the Outer Hebrides
Hideaways in the Outer Hebrides
Page 20-21: Blue Reef Cottage,
Harris.
Above: Corrodale Cottage,
South Uist.
Opposite: Abhainn Cottage,
Breasclete, Lewis.
Photographs taken by Kristina
Hayward.
Worthy of Any Prince
By mid-afternoon we had reached the north
end of the island and the community of
Iochdar, where our first hideaway awaited us,
an old thatched cottage transformed into a
little jewellery box of cosiness. Corrodale
Cottage comprises a room that is kitchen and
living room in one with a little dragon of a
peat-burning stove, a bathroom with a spa
bath and a single bedroom with a four-poster
worthy of any prince.
The west side of South Uist is almost one
unbroken beach and there are places where
you can drive down almost to its edge. There
is all the difference in the world between this
and the little sheltered coves to be found on
Inner Hebridean islands like Colonsay and
Coll and Iona. This is land and waterscape
teeming with birdlife for as soon as we
opened the cottage door we heard peewits
and greylag geese and curlews.
When we drove inland too beside one of the
wandering lochs and close to its incredible
blueness, we were under the ramparts of the
Uist hills with their many ravens and eagles.
On another day we went east to find the
settlement of Lochmaddy and the gem
of its arts centre and museum, Taigh
Chearsabhagh. Beside us grandparents sat
with their grandson chatting in Gaelic,
though what often is spoken today is a real
mixture - a sentence of English followed by
one of Gaelic.
Blue Reef Cottages
When Kristina and I crossed the Sound of
Harris to the township of Leverburgh we
could not have wished for a better day. I have
seen it miraculously clear with the water often
shallow and the most beautiful liquid blue,
the sea simply alive with birds. Just ten
minutes beyond Leverburgh are the Blue Reef
Cottages where we were to stay.
Here they are almost sculpted into the
hillside, little rock fortresses covered by soft
green grass affording priceless views out over
the bays for which Harris is so famous. Only
minutes beyond the cottages are Scarista and
Luskentyre. They meld into one as the road
twists and turns around the coast.
The sands are almost pure white at times with vast shores
pounded by great thunderheads of sea that spill coral-white
vastnesses of water over their miles. I had been foolish enough
to suggest to Kristina that we might swim. There was not the
slightest hope of such a thing. Perhaps on a truly gentle June
day there would be the chance of it, but this is water to be
taken seriously indeed.
The Beaches
Around our cottage skylarks twirled and sang. We sat by the
astoundingly fine windows of our cottage like children simply
gazing at the blue-green back of the Atlantic as it breathed
and swelled hour after hour. One day we negotiated the single
track road to Rodel, but almost always it was the beaches that
drew us back and back once more.
Then we drove north through the glens and hills that
separate Harris from Lewis. They are a real surprise for they
are truly high and wild. Then down at last into the long
moorlands and loch country that is Lewis with scattered
townships and peatstacks, and the wind scurrying over all of
it as surely it has done from time’s beginning.
Our final cottage was in the village of Callanish, a
hideaway with an open fire and a little sauna in the
bathroom. What I had sought in all the places we were to
stay was cosiness, for there’s nothing more important when
coming back from a windy, rain-swept day, tired and hungry
and truly cold. And that was what we found in each of the
exceptionally lovely hideaways.
Eerily Powerful
Abhainn Cottage could not have been better placed for
proximity to all the major sites on the Isle of Lewis. We were
five minutes from the eerily powerful Standing Stones of
Callanish, the Carloway Broch was close by as was the
Blackhouse of Arnol. It was near enough to Stornoway too,
and the ferry back to Ullapool.
An adventure it was indeed and a privilege to get a sense of
the sheer distinctiveness of all the islands that make on the
map a spine of landfalls which might appear similar enough.
Will we be back? Of course, just for longer.
Further Information
Corrodale Cottage, Iochdar, South Uist 01870 610361
stay@uistholidaycottage.co.uk
Blue Reef Cottages, Scarista, Harris 01859 550370
info@stay-hebrides.com
Abhainn Cottage, 2 Breasclete, Isle of Lewis 01851 621397
stay@luxuryhebrideancottage.co.uk
Island Hopping with CalMac:
www.calmac.co.uk/hopscotch
22 SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER MAY / JUNE 2017
MAY / JUNE 2017 SCOTTISH ISLANDS EXPLORER 23