2017 Holiday Season Photos.
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As we approach the 2018 holiday season, with bookings already taken for many weeks in 2018, it is time to put up some photos taken in the area around Dollag's Cottage so our guests old and new can see what has been going on, and can admire the wonderful things there are to see on the West Side of Lewis. As ever it is important to note that the cottage doesn't have a full time photographer and so these are just little snaps taken while out doing other things. A lot of the time I'm going out to fish and so lochs, rivers and fishing are very over represented in the images but hopefully even if you have no interest in such things you will still enjoy getting to see the landscape. For the last few years I've done something similar and complied a little selection of photos so once you tire of the 2017 images you can have a look at some previous years here:
For a change I thought I'd start with some video. This year I shot a little bit of video in the area around the cottage and I've put together this short compliation representing the sights, and also the sounds, that a visitor will meet with on the West Side of Lewis. The audio isn't great quality as it was all recorded on the little inbuilt microphone on my point and shoot camera but it helps build a picture of the atmosphere of Lewis and includes Gaelic Psalm singing, sea scapes, bottle feeding lambs, working sheep, a stone circle, an eagle, some traditional music, a few local rivers, and even your host at Dollag's Cottage working in her peats with the cuckoo calling from the hill out the front of the cottage:
Dollag's Cottage @ 7 South Shawbost
In January the moor seems quite dead but it is still nice to get out and about for a walk and to drop by the old shielings found even on the most remote areas. Although the moor can look quite dead there can also be lots to see with many of the bryophytes continuing to grow right throughout the year:
The work at sheep never stops and once New Year is over it doesn't seem like long before the nights are getting lighter and the thoughts turn to new lambs appearing on the croft. Lambing is always hard work with long days and there are successes and failures. In 2017 we got quite a few little lambs in a box - lambs that either came to us because we had a sheep who had lost her lamb and were given someone else's "spare" lamb or sometimes if the lamb is poorly they would be brought inside to live in their wee box by the stove for a little while until they got on their feet. This wee chap was one of triplets and his mum couldn't cope with all three so he came to us for a sheep who had lost her lamb:
Catching a fish is the least important part of a day up the river but now and again a Lewis Springer does come along. Here on Lewis we fish for our salmon with trout rods as the rivers tend to be small so this spring fish, estimated around 10lb in weight, was caught on gear that in most places would be used for 1lb brown trout. He was, of course, returned to go on his way with a rather more cautious attitude towards any Silver Stoats he might see on his travels:
At this time of year it is also nice to get a day or two at some trout fishing though to be honest for me most of the fun is in getting the stove going and making some tea and watching the world go by. With increasing numbers of hen harriers on the moor a cup of tea is often also an excuse to watch the harrier or, as can be seen in the video at the top of the page, the golden eagle:
As well as the eagles and harriers Lewis also has an interesting, and important, population of slow worms which are not actually native to the island. It seems likely they arrived in soil that was brought to the island. In the Spring they often come out onto exposed spots to soak up the sun and this can be the best time to see them. They are not snakes but rather legless lizards:
Dollag's Cottage actually has an indoor shower but for the hardy there is always the option of a bath on the croft! This image was taken on the croft associated with the cottage and the bath is to providing drinking water for the sheep who are often to be found here, though it is a somewhat unusual thing to see on first glance:
Early in the season the moor still hasn't taken on the green colours of the summer, though they are starting to show through, but even so it can still make for some excellent views and, of course, the beaches for which the area is famous are there all year round. These images were taken in May which often has dry and sunny weather and when you combine this with approaching 18 hours of daylight it is a great time to be in Dollag's Cottage and enjoying the island:
Once there has been a long period of dry weather work starts on the peats which are dug from the moorland and then left to dry before being taken home for winter fuel. A day in the peats is always brightened up by many cups of tea and the cuckoo calling from the nearby hillside. If you take the time to stop then you can watch the cuckoo flit from rock to rock making a quick test call from each new location until he gets a spot he likes and then embarks on a long chain of calls, the recording in the video at the top of the page was made from this peat bank:
The year flies past so quickly and it is not long before we are into the long summer days. Lewis is very low lying and so can get much more sun than most visitors imagine, and certainly a lot more than most of mainland Scotland so factor 50 is often a requirement even in order to get to the bottom of the croft:
The main tourist season is long over and, in my view, many visitors miss out on the most interesting and dramatic periods in the life of the Lewis moorland and the Autumn is my favourite time to be on the moor as it offers dramatic views, dramatic colours and, I must confess, sometimes dramatic weather:
With the end of the fishing season approaching it is time for a last visit to a few spots. Some, especially salmon rivers, are well known and well fished but the remote moorland lochs are infrequently visited and it is possible I was the last visitor to some of these lochs, and also that I will be the next visitor when I decide to go back:
