We woke hoping for a less traumatic day – sadly we woke to no power! We’d heard various devices an appliances clicking on and off just before we woke up at 7am, and yes, Harris had no electricity. The supply comes from the Isle of Skye for Harris, but not Lewis – so whilst Lewis were OK, we were not.
Heading downstairs to the shop we found them in dark, unable to sell us anything unless we had cash. Clever us, we’d brought £200 cash with us for exactly this reason. Breakfast things bought, and consumed in our room, but unable to have a shower (electric showers don’t work without electricity!) we headed out, hoping power would be restored later in the day.
First stop, Luskentyre beach. Weather was patchy. High winds remained, which made the grassy dunes amazing to watch, but the rain wasn’t far away at all times – and when it hit, it was heavy.
We then decided that we’d head north to Stornaway on Lewis for petrol and lunch, as we knew they had power – and petrol stations around Tarbert weren’t working. We had half a tank of fuel, but wouldn’t quite have enough for our time on Harris and Lewis so needed to get some. It was around an hour drive, punctuated with a few stops to see waterfalls which were being blown upwards, and rain and wind which forced us to park up because of how fierce it was.
We found petrol and lunch – in fact we had a large hot meal in case on our return to Tarbert we found power hadn’t been restored.
Our drive back to Tarbert was in clearer weather (still very windy), and we saw some incredible views. Lewis is a lot flatter than Harris, which is quite mountainous.
One final stop of the day, the North Harris Eagle Observatory. We doubted we’d see any eagles given the high winds, but it gave us a 4km walk along a valley bottom. No eagles were seen. On the way back we decided to do a bit of trail running, to reduce any chances of being hit by rain. Apparently it’s harder to run in full waterproof gear with a rucksack packed with camera gear!
Back in the car we headed back to Tarbert….only stopped by another famous road block – more cows. This time we sat and waited for them to obediently pass.
Back at our accommodation we found power had been restored!! That allowed a shower before dinner, at a nearby hotel. The kind of hotel you walk into and can smell the 80s – the smell of wood and dank carpet, it was probably quite nice when it opened 40 years ago, but these days it felt largely outdated, with service and food to match. Not our kind of hotel – fortunately it was just for a quick dinner – no photos as it was average at best.
Back at Nook & Scranny – and a picture of a friend we have in our room.
Breakfast – whatever we could find in Nook & Scranny
Lunch – HS-1, Stornaway
Dinner – Harris Hotel, Tarbert
Hotel – Nook & Scranny, Tarbert