5th August - Ardvourlie

Todays aim was to visit Calanais and Garenin where there was a previously on of the Gaitliff Trust hostels, and to either find the campsite marked on the map or wild camp somewhere.  The main road was fairly easy going but we were aware of a stiff breeze coming from the west which duly hit us as we turned off onto the Calanais road.

The road to Calanais took forever in the wind and we were relieved to reach the first Calanais standing stones where we left the bikes at the side of the road to wander around the stones, here we bumped into another cyclist from the Basque country we agreed to "share the wind" on our onward journey as he was heading round to Stornoway for the boat the next day.  He was doing a week tour from Glasgow up round the islands and back down to Glasgow, but first we needed lunch. Unfortunately we arrived in the café at the same time as a tour bus, honesty got the better of me when I was asked if I was on the bus and missed out on a free lunch.

With lunch eaten and the main set of standing stones visited we set off at pace into the wind, unfortunately both myself and Basque friend (I never noted his name) were able to maintain a pace in echelon that James couldn't, although I didn't have long to wait when I stopped at Carloway so we could visit Garenin.

We had both miss-judged the number of shops on Lewis as in the south islands every village seems to have a shop however with Tesco and Co-Operative in operation in Stornoway all the local shops have closed down, however on the road to Garenin we spotted with luck that an art gallery had a small shop attached, it was infact an honesty box shop and by chance we got speaking to the owners, who on hearing that we were thinking of camping up at Shawbost which with my terrible Gaelic pronunciations I was saying Seabost (Sibost) informed us that their "Bothy" was free, this was essentially a garden shed with a bunkbed in it.

It didn't take much thinking to take up this offer as I eventually remembered that James hated his small tent, so with accommodation for the night sorted we set off to the Garenin village.

Garenin is a Blackhouse museum village although you can rent out some of the blackhouses and until closed could stay in the one that formed the hostel.  A couple of the blackhouses are set up as museum features with one having retained the state it was in when "abandoned" and the other converted into shop and video/board exhibits.

Back at the Blue Pig I took a wander after tea up the Pentland road, this cuts across Lewis to Stornoway and was one option for the following day.


GPS Tracks

Ardvourlie to Calanais
http://ridewithgps.com/trips/347789

Calanais to Carloway
http://ridewithgps.com/trips/347793

Photos: