The Sun Shines on Scalpay (5)
I head along the lonely shore of Kennavay and turn up the road to Eilean Glas Lighthouse, and when the road turns into a track I dismount the bike and march, and at length the track stops completely in the moor. The lighthouse looms from the heather half a mile away, on a jutting headland at the extreme tip of Scalpay. Built as long ago as 1789, it was the first in the Outer Isles. Today it is fully automated, and its buildings have become a restaurant and bed-and-breakfast business operated by a chirpy couple of white settlers. Scalpay friends tell me that the couple are currently seeking a table-licence - the island is completely "dry" - and seem unanimously opposed to such an innovation.
I decide not to visit the restaurant at Eilean Glas and turn to pedal back through the Scalpay villages. Presently I am heading out to Cuddy Point, along the main headland of the North Harbour and immortalised in RunRig lyrics; I take another turn up another headland towards Ardnacille, then pause for breath on a high viewpoint over the main village, above the chimneys of the Free Church Manse.
