North Rona

[Tengu]

I hate fiddling with Photobucket so I never got my North Rona pics into it.

But I have now.

Sorry for the delay. But with North Rona you have to be very patient.

It was only the third summer I managed to get there...Quite by accident and certain birds telling me things.

We know St Kilda exists, but North Rona is a quantum existance, you have to observe it to make it real.

I just hope I got in all the details...

 

[Tengu]

Here is the landing on the south coast, at an inlet called Poll Thothatom.

We have to get our gear up that cliff.

This is the extreeme SW peninsula. called Sceapull, I think. There is a landing there, (also one on the E coast, the most used.) and according to the archealogical report, a boat noost, like you see in the Shetlands.

This is another view in that direction, to Suliseiger, 12 miles away.

Voila! We have a bird! I was actualy rather suprised at the scarcity of birds. (I guess I forgot to put them in) Suliseiger more than made up for this.

Looking North over the lazybeds.

Im afraid there arent too many pics of the island. I couldnt take any on the way up...the boat was bucking too violently (I was assured it was a dead flat calm, the only way you can land on this island) and I was too tired to explore much. My main interest was the village.

 

[Seoras]

Again another good set of pictures Tengu.

I don't know if it is still happening but some crofters from my village (Ness) still keep sheep on the island.

Suliseiger of in the mists is where my family and other Ness men hunt the Guga (young Gannet) once a year.

Great that you got good weather for the pictures.

Edit - My Grandfather was stranded on Suliseiger for a few weeks on a Guga trip because of the weather. He left a message in a bottle and placed it in a cairn to say goodbye to his loved ones. Luckily they got picked up before it was too late.

 

[Tengu]

Oh, these endless little isles!
And of all little isles this Ronay!
Yet, much as hath been seen, not to see thee,
clad with soft verdure, and in thine awful solitude,
lying of in the lap of wild ocean,
-not to see the with the carnal eye,
would be to have seen nothing!

 

[nuggets]

Again another good set of pictures Tengu.

I don't know if it is still happening but some crofters from my village (Ness) still keep sheep on the island.

Suliseiger of in the mists is where my family and other Ness men hunt the Guga (young Gannet) once a year.

Great that you got good weather for the pictures.

Edit - My Grandfather was stranded on Suliseiger for a few weeks on a Guga trip because of the weather. He left a message in a bottle and placed it in a cairn to say goodbye to his loved ones. Luckily they got picked up before it was too late.

why would ya take a bottle ,a pen/pencil and paper ,on a gannet hunt ???okenest:

 

[Tengu]

Um, I imagine the bottle didnt need explaining.

 

[Tengu]

So you still want to see my holiday snaps? <shakes head sadly>

Heres the chapel and graveyard, in the background you can see the hut used by the Uni of Aberdeen when studying the seal breeding. (and then the island gets busy and vulgar)

The hut is open, and there is a visitors book inside, but thanks to the reticience of my fellow nutters, I didnt find this out until later.

I have lost an awful lot of face...

in the foreground is a modern grave of two shepherds from 1889. Many visitors say its nasty and out of place, but it has weathered very much (being of sandstone, the local rock is a kind of gneiss) and you can only see a few letters.

This is the chapel door from the inside, it is about a metre tall...

The chapel is a 12th century building annexing the rather rough beehive hut that was St Ronans Cell.

I did not try to go in the cell, for fear of fulmars...

here are some quernstones and gravestones placed there by Frank Fraser Darling when he excavated the chapel in 1938.

His book, `Island Years` is a very accesible account of the island. (and camping)

 

[Shewie]

Fascinating pics Tengu, thanks for sharing.

I could spend many an hour investigating those structures.

 

[Seoras]

why would ya take a bottle ,a pen/pencil and paper ,on a gannet hunt ???okenest:

I take it that you know exactly what goes on in a Guga expedition then? Or do you have you a vision of some sort of stone age hunting party setting of to this remote island?

For your information it was 1983 and my grandfather who had been a sailor most of his life in the RN and Merchant Navy felt he needed to leave a message in case they did not get off the island alive. They were stranded and continually wet and cold and at that time he was nearly 70.

He never returned to the island after that.

I hope that answers your question?

P.S. I take it that your little clip of a man poking a bees nest and getting stung infers that he was an idiot and it was self inflicted.

Sorry Tengu for replying like this on your thread.

 

[Tengu]

It was a calm day.

We couldnt land on suliseiger.

its like that.

 

[Tengu]

blackbacks

Sheepies

Fulmars

I used the zoom for that shot

Here is her egg

 

[andybysea]

Cracking pics , reminds me of a trip i had to the Orkney's thakns for putting them up.

 

[Tengu]

Now, by way of a break, here are a couple of artefects from the museum at Port of Ness...

Ive got a drawing of the carving on the cross...but I cant find it in my files.

 

[Tengu]

Just a generic house view.

There were once thirty people in five houses on N Rona.

The houses are underground. (Like Inuit houses a friend said, or Skara Brae) round, and have long wind baffling entrance chambers.

They would have been roofed with turf, and there is an account of an early visitor sitting on a mound, and not realising it was a roof untill he saw the smoke from the fire.

there is our sturdy ship, the Lochlan, capable of 18 knots if you get out and push...

These are the foundations of a hut put up by the RAF in the war. They were retrieving a twin engined bomber force landed upon the isle. The village well is in the foreground. (there are other wells on the island, but I did not find them)

This is the Manse, the last house to be occupied on the island.

and the manse porch.

Do you want to see anymore? Photobucket is so tiresome

 

[Tengu]

Ah, credits< I forgot.

Thanks to an organisation called the Rucksack Club of Manchester, who arranged a private charter and let me come along.

And Murray McLeod of Seatrek, Uig, Lewis, the finest boat charter in the Outer Hebridies.

Does anyone want to see my Suliseiger pics now? there are gannets in them.

 

[Seoras]

Great pictures Tengu. I may have a biased opinion on the subject as I am a Ness man but please keep the pictures and stories coming.

Cheers

George

 

[fred gordon]

Great pictures. Thanks for sharing.