Walking on Harris and Lewis. Richard Barrett

in the modern world. It has a smaller population with barely 2000 people compared with the 18,000 in Lewis. Having little industry other than agriculture, fishing and tourism, it is far less industrialised than its neighbour. And the lack of memorials to the land struggle or the staunch resistance to Lord Leverhulme that can be found in Lewis suggests that Harris folk are perhaps more tolerant and easier going. When much of the Spanish Armada was wrecked in storms as it circumnavigated Scotland in an attempt to escape Sir Francis Drake's fleet in 1588, some of the Spanish sailors are said to have ended up on Harris. Their Mediterranean genes are supposed to give the indigenous population a darker complexion and an easier manner than the blond, blue-eyed Lewismen, many of whose ancestors came from Norway. Who knows? It is also said that the Gaelic spoken in Harris has a softer lilt to it than that spoken in Lewis. Certainly everything else about the place seems to have a similar charm. But don't dismiss either. Harris may have higher hills and a greater number of beaches, but Lewis has more prehistory, more tourist attractions – and ultimately many more hills.

SO WHAT IS AN ISLAND?

      You are probably still trying to reconcile the anomaly of having the two islands of Harris and Lewis on a single landmass. But what exactly does it take to make an island? The Oxford English Dictionary defines an island as a landmass surrounded by water. This sounds straightforward. However, Hamish Haswell-Smith, renowned sailor and author of the definitive The Scottish Islands, was faced with the dilemma of which to include and which to omit, as listing every little skerry would result in a work that would run to many volumes. He decided to limit himself to any piece of land that is over 40 hectares at high tide and completely surrounded by seawater at low tide so that you can only get to it by getting your feet wet or by boat.

      Looking down the fjord-like Loch Seaforth that divides Harris and South Lewis

      Having developed a working list of 165 islands to document, map and occasionally paint with his charming watercolours, the opening of the Scalpay Bridge and the causeways that link North Uist to Berneray and South Uist to Eriskay led him to reduce his list to 162, where it has remained since. Who knows how the population on the Isle of Skye, perhaps the most famous of Scottish islands, feels about being excluded from the list? Perhaps Hamish has to use an alias whenever he anchors in Portree harbour?

Geology

      The main islands of the Outer Hebrides and the north-western part of the Scottish Highlands are made up of some of the oldest rocks in Europe, known since the late 19th century as Lewisian gneisses. The name describes a series of metamorphic rocks formed by intense pressure and temperature over a period of 1500 million years. Most of these gneisses started off as igneous rocks, such as granites and gabbros, formed by the cooling and crystallisation of magma nearly 3000 million years ago. These original rocks were then destroyed when they were buried, reheated and subjected to great pressures in the earth's crust, eventually forming the metamorphic gneiss complexes we see today.

      Lewisian gneiss is characterised by narrow, alternating bands of contrasting colours. The paler bands, which are typically pale grey or pink, are made up of crystals of quartz and feldspar, whereas the darker green and black bands are largely made up of minerals called amphiboles. Examples of this striation can be seen in the exposed boulders on the western beaches of both Harris and Lewis as well as in many of the stones at Calanais.

      Lewisian gneiss below Sron Godamull

      Most of Lewis and the mountains of North Harris are made up of banded gneisses, but moving west and south there are increasingly more veins of hard pink granite and metamorphosed gabbro and related rocks, until at the extreme south of Harris there is a narrow band of metamorphosed sedimentary rock similar to that found at the extreme north of Lewis. Granite is less easily eroded than the surrounding gneiss and good examples can be seen in the sea stacks to the south of Uig Bay in Lewis and on the Ceapabhal promontory in the south-west corner of Harris. The coarsely crystallised pink and white granite found here is known as pegmatite and is largely made up of feldspar and quartz. It forms a distinct horizontal band across the hill that is obvious from quite a distance, especially when it catches the light. In addition to the large pink crystals of feldspar and white crystals of quartz, the rock is shot through with flakes of dark red garnet crystals and clear muscovite and glossy black biotite micas.

      Since feldspar melts over a wide temperature range, depending on its composition, it is used in the manufacture of ceramics. When mixed with the clays it makes them easier to work and produces a stronger and more durable product. The peak of Roineabhal at the southern end of Harris and other outcrops around the nearby Lingreabhagh are made up of a rare type of whitish igneous rock known as anorthosite, which consists almost entirely of feldspar. During World War II a quarry at Sletteval on the north-east slopes of Roineabhal provided most of the feldspar that the UK needed to manufacture porcelain electrical insulators. However, the cost of extracting the feldspar proved to be greater than the cost of foreign imports and its colour meant that it produced inferior porcelain; therefore, as has been the plight of most commercial activity in the islands, it was a short-lived venture.

      But this was not the end of quarrying in South Harris. Although small-scale quarrying restarted in the 1960s but again soon petered out, other people had ideas on a far larger scale. Starting in 1974, plans were produced to develop a coastal super-quarry to extract ten million tons of aggregates each year for 60 years, much needed, it was argued, to satisfy growing demand on mainland UK. Thirty years later in 2004, the developers eventually made a dignified retreat but by then the case had become the longest running and most complex planning case Scotland had ever seen, with more than 100 witnesses and over 400 written submissions heard during 83 days of advocacy that were part of the public inquiry. If planning permission had been granted, and once the quarry was exhausted, almost a third of Roineabhal would have disappeared. Fortunately it is still with us and remains one of the best.

      Sron Uladail – 250m of overhanging Lewisian gneiss with the ‘cnoc and lochan’ terrain of Morsgail Forest in the distance (Walk 14)

      The rugged and desolate landscape of Lewis and Harris today dates from the most recent ice age that scoured away loose rock and deepened and widened pre-existing valleys, leaving the fjord-like lochs and sea lochs such as Loch Sìophort (Loch Seaforth). Many of the basins formed by the ice are now filled with either water or peat and surrounded by ice-sculpted crags. This ‘cnoc and lochan’ landscape is best seen in the Bays area on the east coast of Harris: cnoc meaning hillock, lochan meaning a little loch. Further north in Lewis the retreating ice laid down smooth, undulating layers of glacial rubble called till. Subsequently peat formed on top of this layer which, being rich in clay, is poorly drained. From about 11,500 years ago, when the sea level was 50m below today's level, the dry Arctic climate was gradually replaced by a relatively warm maritime climate dominated by the Gulf Stream. As the ice withdrew back to the poles the seas rose, changing the coastline and reducing the landmass. Around 6000 years ago it was 20m below current levels and it continues to rise, the east coast region of the Bays in South Harris being typical of a recently drowned landscape.

      The sheer variety of terrain and the dramatic changes within the space of a short car ride are what make Harris and Lewis so appealing. Not only is there the possibility of four seasons in one day with the weather, but there are also high hills, remote moorland, vertiginous rock faces, deep sea lochs, silver beaches and emerald seas all in one neat package. You can rise early and enjoy a strenuous walk in the hills in the morning then chill out on a deserted beach in the afternoon sun. There are few other parts of Great Britain that can provide the same exhilarating mix, and while those seeking derring-do may only come to the island in their later years, what they will find here is much like well-aged single malt – well worth waiting for.

      Four seasons in one May morning on Oireabhal – snow, then hail followed by sun and