Western Isles

The wild and windy Western Isles (www.witb.co.uk) - also known as the Outer Hebrides or the Long Isle - vaunt a strikingly hostile mix of landscapes from windswept golden sands to harsh, heather-backed mountains and peat bogs. An elemental beauty pervades each of the more than two hundred islands that make up the archipelago, only a handful of which are actually inhabited by a total of just over 30,000 people. The influence of the Atlantic Gulf Stream ensures a mild but moist climate, though you can expect the strong Atlantic winds to blow in rain on two out of every three days even in summer. Weather fronts, however, come and go at such dramatic speed in these parts that there's little chance of mist or fog settling and few problems with midges.

The most significant difference from Skye is that tourism on the Western Isles is much less important to the fragile economy, which is still mainly concentrated around crofting, fishing and weaving; the percentage of "white settlers" is also a lot lower. The Outer Hebrides remain the heartland of Gaelic culture, with the language spoken by the vast majority of islanders, though its everyday usage remains under constant threat from the national dominance of English. Its survival is due, in no small part, to the all-pervading influence of the Free Church and its offshoots, whose strict Calvinism is the creed of the vast majority of the population, with the sparsely populated South Uist, Barra and parts of Benbecula adhering to the more relaxed demands of Catholicism.

The interior of the northernmost island, Lewis, is mostly peat moor, a barren and marshy tract that gives way abruptly to the bare peaks of North Harris. Across a narrow isthmus lies South Harris, presenting some of the finest scenery in Scotland, with wide beaches of golden sand trimming the Atlantic in full view of the mountains and a rough boulder-strewn interior lying to the east. Further south still, a string of tiny, flatter islets, mainly North Uist, Benbecula, South Uist and Barra, offer breezy beaches, whose fine sands front a narrow band of boggy farmland, which, in turn, is mostly bordered by a lower range of hills to the east.

In direct contrast to their wonderful landscapes, villages in the Western Isles are rarely picturesque in themselves, and are usually made up of scattered, relatively modern croft houses strung out along the elementary road system. Stornoway, the only real town in the Outer Hebrides, is eminently unappealing. Many visitors, walkers and nature watchers forgo the settlements altogether and retreat to secluded cottages and B&Bs, though for this you really need your own transport.

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