We had our first rain of the holiday today…. It’s been forecast all week and although the forecast keeps changing, Wednesday was always going to be the worst weather day. (at time of writing it is not going to be the worst day now…. 😬)
As I write this I’m sitting outside Abbie the camper van in shorts and a vest top! It’s hot again out of the wind.
So back to this morning…. For the first time I had to get up in the middle of the night to go to the loo. Someone brought a chilli sauce with us called “Shit the Bed”…. He who shall remain nameless put it in our lovely pasta dish last night leaving me, at 3am trying to carry out that actual task. ‘Scuse the disgusting nature of this conversation but there is a point to it…. I finally got to see the campsite in the dark, and hardly surprisingly, it wasn’t really dark when I got up. I could see to walk to the toilets without a head torch… I needed it for inside the toilets but there was a line of light on the horizon. We’re only a few weeks away from summer solstice which is the reason we’re on holiday in June. I wanted to get away with the lighter nights. We were outside in shorts until after 10pm again last night when the sun set!
I took lots of sunset shots…. The low sun was lovely.
So back to this morning. Moderately heavy winds and rain….. so we stayed in bed until 12.40pm!!! We had breakfast and read books and had a snooze… had a lovely lazy morning.
The rain stopped before lunch and it was still very grey and overcast so we headed to The Hynish Centre today which is run by Hebridean Heritage. It’s unmanned but very informative and we followed the heritage trail.
It explains how the Skerryvore Lighthouse was built.
Skerryvore is 10.5 nautical miles off the coast of Tiree. I can’t imagine how difficult the conditions were to build a lighthouse out there in treacherous conditions.
The lighthouse is 138 feet or 42m high and was built using Hebridean Gneiss for the first 4 layers and then Ross of Mull Granite as it proved easier to work with.
The fact they used no mortar on it at all is fascinating. The weight of the massive upper stones holds the lower stones in place and it withstands the onslaught of the Atlantic.
The sun came out as we walked around and it’s been a lovely day since.
The harbour is fascinating as it had to be open out to sea to allow ships to use it. This lead to sand filling up into the harbour and they had to find a way to remove it.
They built a flush out system where a reservoir fills up with water and the sluice gates are opened and the rush of water flushed all the sand back out to sea and then huge gates came down to keep the ship docked in water without more sand coming in. All of this in the early 1800’s…. It’s fascinating what they achieved.
We then drove back out to Scarinish for a wander and popped into the Co-op for tonight’s BBQ.
So as usual… loads more photos to share but will load these up for now.
The forecast isn’t great and everyone we speak to says the ferry might not run on Saturday…. We just have to wait and see. It’s been windy today but that is forecast to double by Friday afternoon….. 😳💨💨💨
And that’s not because of the chilli sauce. 🤦🏻♀️🤷🏻♀️🤣😘
Stay safe everyone 🏝🏴☀️
The Rambling Sloth 🦥 
Lovely pics again.. X
LikeLike