A cycle through time on the Outer Hebrides
A year in 20 photographs 9/20 – phone box in the Outer Hebrides
I often tell people that the Outer Hebrides are unlike anywhere else in the UK or even the world and that travelling along the Hebridean Way is a journey.
There are many similarities, such as a phone box, but these urban familiarities appear incongruous on these windswept, wild islands.
Cycling on the Hebridean Way is a journey through a landscape where humans have had a clear impact.
For thousands of years, people have built dwellings, raised families, farmed, lived, and died on these islands.
The markers are there for all to see, from the hillside scarred by peat-cutting to abandoned and ruined crofts; from the standing stones at Callanish to the chambered burial cairn at Barpa Langais.
All these monuments to human survival on the edge of Europe tell a story of how people have interacted, travelled, and survived through the millennia on the chain of islands.
What makes the Outer Hebrides different from other places is that, even for the oldest of these marks that we have left on the landscape, they still seem fleeting. They convey the fragility of who we are. Nature is there, waiting patiently to claim it all back for herself.
In a world where it is almost impossible to switch off, the Outer Hebrides feel like one of the last bastions of wilderness. One where you are reminded of the true power and indifference of nature towards humanity.
Travelling along the Hebridean Way by bike is one of the best ways to experience this. Not just getting from point A to point B, but a passage through millennia of humankind and the force of our environment.
It is what I mean by a journey.
