August 3rd, Monday, still on Eigg

My Dutch fellow guests left this morning. It was another grey, windy day and I decided to walk along the bay and try to find the Massacre and Cathedral Caves. I was supposed to follow the purple trail but, whereas the blue trail had been fairly easy to follow, I lost the purple trail about midway through the hike, just as I was heading down toward the beaches. Just like the other day at Loch An Nostarie, I kept heading into deep fern thickets. Although I didn't step into any bog, thank goodness, I stumbled several times into holes and almost pitched over. It was quite frustrating. After about an hour of this I did get close to the rocks but couldn't find the caves.

Tired, I decided it didn't matter whether I found the caves, I'd just enjoy sitting and watching the tide coming in.

So I ate my lunch and thought. I was alone as usual except for the ubiquitous sheep. It was easy to just let my thoughts roll around.

This sheep obviously was thinking too. I think that's the mainland in the distance but my sense of geography is not the best if you haven't found that out already.

Very elemental; like something out of a Wagner opera :)

As I turned back to the last place I'd seen a purple splodge for the trail, I saw the Sgurr brooding above me.

On the way back I stopped to look at the old manor house. Eigg used to be owned by a series of wealthy men. In the early 1900s, one of those landowners built a splendid Italianate villa and his wife designed beautiful gardens around the villa. The villa is now a local meeting house and the gardens are no more.

But under the arches in the front doorway, life still goes on. I was enchanted to see this little family; the young ones big enough that they would soon be gone, mom bringing them one last meal. (They were gone when I went back the next day.)

I'm reposting this map of Eigg to show where I walked today. Once again I started at Kildonan Farm, walked to the left along the beach to the leftmost darker green spot, partway along the edge of that darker green then down toward the dark grey line along the coast. I sat down at the coast to have my lunch then retraced my steps back toward Kildonan with a short stop at the manor house.

Just up from Kildonan Farm on a grassy hill are the ruins of the old Kildonan Church and cemetery. There is some controversy as to how old the church actually is--some say it's 16th century, some say it's 18th. It certainly looks older than any church I've seen so far. If you look closely at the far wall, just toward the left side, you'll see a small sculpture.

This is the best photo I could get of the sculpture. I couldn't actually get inside the church a the gate had rusted shut. I leaned over the gate and held my camera out to take the photo. To find out about it I had to resort to my usual Google to find out what this figure was and why it was protected like that. One website says that the figure was once thought to be a Sheela Na Gig sculpture--Celtic mother goddess. But this same website also doubted that it was such a figure. Still, there are some manuscripts that say that St. Donan, who founded Kildonan, was martyred in 617 by Irish pirates at the request of a pagan (Celtic) queen. Does this figure date from that time? Who knows??

Ruins of a Celtic cross in the cemetery.

The cemetery with old and new graves.

There are graves inside the church as well.

When I got back to the farm the water was off again. Although it's seemed wet to me the past few days, the island hasn't actually had that much rainfall; not enough to fill the well. When the water level gets too low, the pump stops working and Colin has to restart it. The pump was only off a few hours thank goodness. Four new guests had arrived: a couple from Inverness, an IT specialist working for the Highland Board of Education and a young woman from Edinburgh who was putting in new software at the doctor's office. Another huge dinner, another night of reading by the woodstove.