Wednesday 06/09/06

Fairly bright day with some showers. The English couple stay on for another night, as they are quite comfortable. Another lady is due off the plane, who is involved with a concert tonight - which I'm not attending. As she arrives before midday, mrs B and I have an opportunity to go out for the afternoon. A cruiseship has arrived, the Mona Lisa. She is an old lady of the seas, built in 1966 as the Kungsholm, from Sweden. After stints as the Sea Princess and the Victoria, the ship was refurbished in 2002 as the Mona Lisa. It has a replica of the famous painting on the funnel. Coaches are lined up alongside no 3 pier to take passengers on tours around Lewis. She measures 200 by 26 m and has a 9 m draft, which means she cannot berth, as the piers can only accommodate vessels which draw a maximum of 7 m. Mona Lisa departs at 6pm, destination unknown to me. Found it very difficult to find any inside information on her on the Net. Anyway, leave for the busstation at 1.30pm, and sit on the Point bus, waiting for it to go. Bit of a smell on board, of sweat, booze and chips. We are going to Aignish, 7 miles to the east, which costs me 85p single. From there, we are walking the 1½ miles along the northern side of the Braighe back to Melbost, from where another bus will take us back to town. For now, the bus runs past the Health Centre on Springfield Road, down Anderson Road to Sandwick and past Park End to the Braighe. We alight at the Landraiders' Monument at 2pm. Mrs B wants to look around the old Eye (or Aoidhe) Cemetery, which has tombstones going back to the 18th century. Some of the oldest graves only have symbols on them, such as a skull and crossbones, a goblet etc. These are in a terrible state of repair, and generally quite a few tombstones are leaning at all sorts of angles or have fallen over. By 2.30, we leave the churchyard and walk down to the beach below. At a slow amble, we head west towards the village of Melbost, 1.5 miles away.

Half way down, we go up to the top of the seabarrier and have a break. Mrs B collects another handful of seashells. There is a very cold northwesterly wind. The views are great, right along the coast to Garrabost in Point, and as far north as Cellar Head near Filiscleitir in Ness. We carry on to the loch and Melbost. Bus leaves at 4.15, and takes us back to Stornoway. I go on to Somerfields to get the necessary. The day closes sunny and bright.