I visited a peaceful island on the west coast of Scotland - it was one of my favourite places on Hay's Way so far - video Dailymotion

The Scotsman

'One of my favourite places on my walk around Scotland so far' - Katharine Hay visits a peaceful west coast island during Hay's Way

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00:00Hi, Katherine Hay, Rural Affairs Correspondent at the Scotsman. I've just made it back to

00:24the mainland after paying a visit to Lismore, which is an island on the west coast of Scotland.

00:30It was part of my Hay's Way adventure, which is a walk around Scotland that I've been doing since

00:37March, and several people have asked me throughout the last sort of nine, ten months where my

00:43favourite place has been so far on Hay's Way, and I would say that Lismore is pretty up there.

00:51It's interesting, my twin sister actually put the idea in my head I wasn't actually going to go

00:55there, but she suggested I go and check it out, and so I went when I had made it to Oban.

01:02I saw you could get a ticket to Lismore, and it was just a 40-minute ferry crossing. I had a bit

01:07of drama trying to get there because the tides meant that my ferry was cancelled, but anyway

01:12eventually made it to Lismore in the dark. I hadn't called ahead, which the CalMac ferry staff

01:18had suggested I do, to see if there was any accommodation because it's a small crofting

01:23island. It's only about 10 miles long and one mile wide, and about 170 residents live there,

01:29and it just doesn't have the same sort of tourist flow as the neighbouring islands of Mull and Iona,

01:35but anyway I just sort of chanced it and managed to get us a bed in the bunkhouse,

01:42which is run by a couple called Claire and Mike, and yeah it was quite interesting arriving in the

01:49dark because I didn't really know what to expect, and the next day Mike showed me around the croft

01:54that they have there, where the bunkhouse is, and he was showing me that they grow tea and

01:59all these heritage grains, very old varieties of oats and barley, and yeah which was just

02:07fascinating to learn about. He told me that if you look at some historic images of the

02:13land there and some of the western isles and the highlands, you can see you know it's covered in

02:19these heritage grains, and so he's trying to, he's sort of part of a group of others who are

02:23sort of bringing back these really interesting crops, and yeah I was very lucky he gave me some

02:29oats that he'd obviously grown himself, and some oat cakes as well that he'd made with the oats

02:35that he'd sort of hand processed himself, so that was great because I had some cheese that I bought

02:42from the Isle of Mull just a few days before, so they went together very nicely, but also just

02:49around the corner from them there's a couple who are big on regenerative farming practices,

02:53they use holistic farming methods for their livestock, and it's all about protecting the soil

02:59and nurturing the soil so that they can make the land more resilient in future climate

03:07challenges such as flooding, and well the storms we've seen that you can get there on the west

03:12coast, so yeah it's a really interesting place, it's absolutely steeped in history, there are

03:17links with St Columba and castles dating back to the 13th century, one of my favourite spots to sit

03:23was actually a old lime works, it was just ruins now, it was active in the 1800s, and it was so

03:31peaceful just sitting among the ruins there, and there were some hen harriers flying overhead which

03:38was reassuring because they're, yeah very, well they're I think on the red list certainly in

03:44Scotland, and it was just a lot, often people say when you visit these kind of islands it feels like

03:53you're stepping back in time, which I can yeah certainly agree with that on Liz Moore, there

04:00was a point where I actually felt self-conscious wearing my sort of modern hiking clothes and with

04:05my Sony camera because it just felt really out of place, but yeah it's a very peaceful island,

04:12really interesting people living there doing interesting things with the land, so yeah sort

04:16of ticked all the boxes for a rural affairs correspondent who's interested in asking

04:21questions about food production and the land and how people how people live and connect to it as

04:26well. You can read about my story on Liz Moore on the Scotsman under the section Hay's Way, where

04:32you'll also find stories that I've been writing over the last few months on the walk itself but

04:37also just on the general rural affairs beat as well, and I also have a newsletter which if you

04:44go onto the Scotsman newsletter link you can scroll down and find Scotsman Rural, just put

04:50your email in there and sign up and you'll get updates on my newsletter every Friday, and they

04:56are more sort of personal accounts of what I'm going through whilst I'm walking and camping around.

05:02This amazing country, and also you can follow any updates from myself

05:07on my Instagram page which is rural underscore capped with a k where I again post about updates

05:14on the walk but also just some photography and summaries of the stories I've been writing

05:19as I've been making my way around the country.

I visited a peaceful island on the west coast of Scotland - it was one of my favourite places on Hay's Way so far

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