Back & Gress - 19/03/05

Today dawned grey and overcast. Jumped on the bus to Tolsta at 12.15, with a view to explore around Gress and Back. Bus is full of Saturday shoppers, some of whom carry so much that they need a hand when getting off. I alight at the southern access road to Griais / Gress and discover a little picnic area by a beach. Comes in very handy. At 1pm, someone “up there” decides to pull up the blinds, the cloud rolls back and summer is here. The temperature rockets to 17C / 63F, something not seen since September 9th, that hot day on Shapinsay, Orkney. I get very warm very quick. Set out along the beach, south to the Gress River. The water there is pretty deep. A man, his son and their dog are playing in the fast-flowing water. Have a wee crack, then cross the roadbridge to the Landraiders’ Monument. This consists of 3 columns, the middle one depicting Lord Leverhulme trying to split the crofting community. When the Leodhsach came back from WW1, they needed land. Leverhulme however had wanted to give them jobs in the industries he intended to establish in the Long Island (Lewis & Harris). The men insisted on land, and occupied his landholdings in Back. In 1921, Leverhulme gave up and sold Lewis and Harris. The parish of Stornoway, which includes the Back district, he gifted to the community. The Stornoway Trust now looks after it. I continue inland, along the Gress River. The sheep are pleased to see me, but I can’t stop to bleat. Have great difficulty negotiating the Allt Cearagol, a mere stream. Its banks are obscured by spaghnum moss, and it’s supremely boggy. After some more squelching, I have to double back along a road to Back New Street. Chat to a saturnine old man, then go down the track. Follow a lady with her dog as far as a set of masts, past some wrecked cars. She goes left, I turn right towards the river. Want to see the rock pools there. I lounge in the moors until just after 3pm, with a coastguard helicopter overhead. I retrace my steps to New Street and cross the river via a footbridge. As I walk down the road in Gress, I have to jump into the verge to avoid a van coming the other way. I manage to trip over a hidden wire in the grass and find myself falling flat on my face in the sodden grass. Just as well it was soft and wet, or else I would have suffered considerable damage to my face. Wipe the mud off with my bonnet (don’t need that, it’s quite warm this afternoon) and wash the worst off on the beach near the bridge. Dog jumps around me and wants to play. I just have to throw that stick at him. Bus takes me back to SY at 4.15. It looks quite summery in the town.