Stornoway; Friday, 20 June, 2025

After an amazing nights sleep I was awoken just before 7am by the first plane of the morning roaring off the runway, I switched off the aircon as the room was now quite cold, had a nice long shower and by the time I’d stepped out the warm muggy conditions in London had happily warmed up the room to a comfortable temperature.

I headed down to the restaurant to grab a leisurely breakfast before grabbing my bag, checking out and heading over to the airport. A smooth journey through the airport and onto the plane and then a relatively smooth journey up to Glasgow – though the completely full plane and some late comers not wanting to part with their hand luggage despite their being no space in any of the lockers did mean we were about 10 minutes late leaving.

The plane landed in Glasgow on time, which meant I had the full near 3½ hour transit time before my connecting flight on over to Stornoway. Thankfully, as the whole trip had been booked through BA, despite the second flight being operated by Loganair I was able to camp out in the lounge until the gate was displayed, and I headed down to board the hop out to the Western Isles.

At one point it looked like the flight might be delayed as there was half of a party of Spanish passengers who had made it to the flight, but the rest of their party were on a delayed flight that was only just arriving into Glasgow, in the end the pilot decided he wasn’t waiting and we pushed back with quite a few seats, but bang on time.

A smooth flight up the western side of Scotland before heading out over the top of Skye and then down into Lewis, with a very pretty arrival past Stornoway harbour and down into the airport, with everyone off the plane 10 minutes before it’s scheduled arrival time.

This meant that I could either wait nearly 90 minutes for the bus, or make the 80 minute walk into town, I decided, given how nice a day it was, to walk and I’m very glad that I did as the weather was perfect – sunny but only about 16C – and the views along the way were spectacular, such that I stopped quite a few times to take photos, and closer into the centre of town I diverted off the shortest route to head down to the harbour and come in through the centre of town rather than direct to the hotel.

Consequently, I’d already done quite a bit of sightseeing by the time I checked into the hotel. I quickly dropped off my stuff and freshened up before popping out to grab a quick bit to eat as it was now almost 6pm.

After dinner I headed out for a wander around in the beautiful evening sunlight – with Stornoway being so far north and west sunset wasn’t due until almost 11pm and even with that as it was almost the longest day the twilight would continue all night without it ever getting truly dark.

From the hotel I followed the Bayhead River upstream, past the grounds of Lews Castle and up to a former corn mill powered by a large waterwheel which has been preserved as a historic monument, along with the millpond and aqueduct that feeds the mill. From the mill it was then a short walk further up the river and then across the neighbouring road and up to the Lewis War Memorial located on the top of a hill overlooking the town.

The memorial was originally built in 1924 to commemorate those who lost their lives in the First World War with additional monuments being added for the lives lost in WWII. The lists of names are horrifically large considering how small the islands population is. After spending some time taking in the memorial, and the beautiful views back over Stornoway, I headed back down the hill into town and over to my hotel for a well-earned rest.