Garenin

When I checked-in at my campsite the other day this was a must-see location so I felt that before leaving I really ought to go and see it. It was easy to find and well signposted and when I arrived at the car park there were a number of cars there so clearly it was a popular attraction. It was closed and why should I be surprised?

It turns out the reason for this is quite simple really but us Sassenachs have all forgotten what things used to be like. You see, Sunday is a day of rest and on Lewis (not Harris I believe) Sunday is a religious day and as a result you do not work and so everything is shut. Cafés, shops, petrol stations (not that there are that many) and most things in fact. I can't speak for pubs because so far I haven't found a single one outside Stornoway so on the basis that they might exist, let's assume they are also shut and make life simple. In fact, pubs are hard to find anywhere in Scotland, not because the Scottish don't drink alcohol, far from it allegedly, but because outside the cities the bars are located in hotels. In rural areas it's the hotels that have the restaurants too but I'm digressing. Let's get back to the Black Houses and the fact that they and the café are closed. Oh, and the arty farty craft shop next door was closed too. Sorry - I'll shut up, which is appropriate don't you think.

The gates to the village were closed but what I couldn't work out was where were the people from the parked cars and the answer was they were in the village. Okay, so the site was closed, the café and ticket office was closed and the arty farty craft shop next door were closed but the gates where not locked, so you were free to enter and have a look around. The individual houses were closed of course and I was delighted to find the door of one open, only to find this was the site's toilets which was thoughtful, I thought. But then I noticed something that had been bugging me since I arrived - the houses were not black!

Once again I am left to ask Google about all this and it seems they are called 'black houses' because they have no chimneys so the smoke from the fire is left to seep through the thatched roof which makes the insides of the houses black from the soot ... mmm, healthy. The houses were built between 1852 and 1895 and stood up well to the onslaught of the weather, so maybe the lack of a chimney was to to stop the rain pouring in, who knows. Their animals lived in the houses as well, but then you knew that didn't you, and I think people lived here until the 1960s, which is hard to believe.

At the end of the village there's a little beach and the start of a coastal walk, which I walked for a while and on the way back I took photo 4 showing the beach and the view over the headland to all those islands. I liked that.Read more