Butt of Lewis - Outer Hebrides

From here, it is a short walk to the Bay of Eoropie, where you walk across silver sand, and the dark blue Atlantic rollers turn to foaming white surf. Ahead is the 'Eye of the Butt of Lewis', a natural arch in the pink and grey folded gneiss, through which the water races.

The route follows a delightful coastal path onto a headland. Beyond stands a rocky island. When a large number of tiny bones were found there, it was thought to have been formally inhabited by pygmies: in fact, the bones were those of small mammals and birds, the remains of food consumed by a hermit.

You continue on the coast path, ablaze with flowers in summer, to the Butt of Lewis. Here, the Butt of Lewis Lighthouse, built by engineer David Stevenson, stands at the dividing point between the Atlantic and the Minch. Around its base are gleaming whitewashed buildings whose windows and bright green doors are set in yellow painted frames. All around, the sea thunders against jagged and inaccessible rocks and crags. These fangs of ancient Lewisian gneiss are the nesting site of many sea birds, and their calls fill the air.

The return walk follows a narrow road that leads from the lighthouse to Five Penny Ness. On either side stretch extensive areas of lazy beds. To grow anything in the very shallow, wet soils, crofters made strips about six feet wide and covered them with soil from ditches dug on either side. This provided both the greater depth of soil and better drainage for their potatoes. The lazy beds were in regular use until the 1920s.

You go through the township of Eoropie, where an oblong mound of peat stands outside each house. Every sod was cut by a crofter using one of Lewis's own special peat cutting irons. The peat is cut in late spring and dried throughout the summer as it always has been. But nowadays it is transported by tractor and trailer instead of in creels carried by women and children. The turfs are burned for fuel and in winter the air is filled with peat reek. A very pleasant aroma.

St Molau's Church (Teampall Mholuaidh), a chapel built in the 10th century and restored in 1912, can be approached by a gated way over croftland. Its unrendered stone walls support a wooden roof. It has two tiny side rooms, one approached from inside the chapel and the other from outside. According to legend, St Molau first preached Christianity to Lewis folk on this site in the 6th century.

Finally, the walk crosses the machair, filled with colour in summer, when pink clover, daisies, buttercups, hay rattle, hawkweed, self heal, field gentian and eyebright grow in great profusion. These meadows are the haunt of lapwings, meadow pippets and skylarks.