The Butt of Lewis (or Rubha Rohanais in Gaelic) is the most northerly point on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides.
That is in itself something of an oxymoron. The most northerly point of a place being called the butt! I’m no doctor but doesn’t “butt” imply lower down not higher up?
In any event, looking at a map, the Butt of Lewis is by my rough visual only a few miles south of John O’ Groats if you drew a line across to the mainland with a ruler.
We visited the Butt of Lewis later in the day expecting to see cliffs and of course the lighthouse, and this location turned out to be a lot more enjoyable than we had expected.
The late afternoon sunlight was really pleasing and the coastline and cliffs dramatic.
We met a local resident who was very friendly and chatted to us about the island and some of her family history. She had so much information to give us and was encouraging us to come back again, we laughed and ribbed her that she should work for the local tourist information centre.
The Butt of Lewis is said to be recorded in the Guinness Book of Records as the windiest place in the UK but it was fine on this day. However, the edge of cliffs have a huge and open drop down to the sea so you need to be careful. I would imagine walking around the clifftop in high winds would be quite scary, never mind dangerous.
I got some very pleasing shots of the cliffs and rocks going out to sea, experimenting with compositions and shutter speeds to see if I could capture some movement in the sea.
There are the rocks in front of the lighthouse and further along the clifftop which offer many different compositions.
There are also the views accessed by walking round the back of the lighthouse over the grassed area. Here you can get a shot of the rocks with the lighthouse peeking out over the top.
After an initial walk round, I realised that my wide angle lens was needed, so nipped back to the car, changed lenses and revisited most of the spots I’d already photographed!
I quite like the shot below of the rocks, sea and lighthouse.
The lighthouse is said to have been built in 1862 having been originally powered by fish oil, then paraffin in 1869, then electricity in 1976, and automated in 1998.
As we left, we stopped at nearby Port Stoth (pronounced locally as Stow) which is a sheltered cove where ships would once land to make deliveries.
The remains of a building where supplies were once stored can be seen here.
I grabbed some shots here which gave me a good leading line, and a nice scene out from the cove to sea.
We ventured back to Aird near Stornoway with another enjoyable trip in the bag.
Onwards and upwards…