Walking The Coffin Road - Isle of Harris - Outer Hebrides

[Jif]

The Coffin Road is a footpath that joins the two coasts of Harris - from the Bays of Harris in the east, over the hill to the beaches of the West Side.  As there were no cemeteries on the rough, rocky landscape of the east coast of Harris, nor was there any road through the Bays of Harris for many years, this is the path along which those attending a funeral had to carry the coffin.  Their destination was one of the cemeteries on the west side, at Scarista, Borve or Luskentyre, all of which can still be seen today, where there was suitable level ground.  

The area near the start of the walk stood in for Jupiter in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Just after Loch Airigh, the ground is composed predominantly of large rocks, exposed by melting glaciers. The rock, known as anorthosite, is similar in composition to that found on the moon. This barren landscape was filmed from small planes, and tinted using coloured lenses to make it look even more otherworldly.

We really enjoyed this hike, even though it turned out to be a lot longer than we expected. The guide we were using suggested it was a 5 mile hike, in reality it turned out to be about 24km for the round walk. We hadn't prepared properly as we thought it was just a short walk. We had no food and a single small bottle of water, it was a hot day. By the time we were half way around we were getting very thirsty and hungry!

The video shows the first half of the walk, the walk back to the van was easier but not as scenic.

When we eventually got back to the campervan, we discovered that the fob which disabled/enabled the van engine had fallen out my pocket into gravel, although we found it, it had come apart and one of the two button batteries was missing. Luckily, I had my car keys with me and used the battery from that. By the time we got going, all the campsites were full. A guy at a nearby campsite suggested we camp up at a deserted house just down the road overlooking a lochone. It was a beautiful location which I used as background for a previous video, In a Good Place Now.

I wrote an original piece of music to go with the video, hope you enjoy it.

[JohnDavisStringsHere]

nice one Geoff, i would love to do that but I'm too old and its too far from Tesco,s

[Jif]

Cheers John. You would be alright in Inverness, they have at least 3 massive Tesco's, on the Islands it's mainly small Coop's. There is a huge Coop in Stornoway though.

I guess we all have things we plan to do and then we get old or unwell, and they all go out the window. Bet you've done some interesting travelling in your time though, and seen some stuff

[JohnDavisStringsHere]

Will I could recommend going from Vermont down to Galveston and taking in all the steel guitar meetings that you can find on the way down, trouble is it's too big you can't do it in one visit You really need at least 3.

[Jif]

Sounds good John

[Uncle Roy]

How beautiful is that Geoff, love your track that goes with the video, like John I am too old
to make that journey now and it’s too far from an Asda

[Jif]

How beautiful is that Geoff, love your track that goes with the video, like John I am too old
to make that journey now and it’s too far from an Asda

Cheers Roy. Although the Outer Hebrides is a part of Scotland, it feels and looks like another Country. The beaches are something else, silver sands that stretch for miles and usually deserted. They look like South Sea island beaches, just a pity they are on the Atlantic, not the warmest for swimming

I'm more of a Morrisons man myself, there are a lot of Morrisons on Harris, most of them are called Jock though there are a few Jim's. A Scottish newspaper ran a story a while back about Jim Morrison's heritage, they traced it back to Harris and had a side by side picture of Jim Morrison with his Great Great Grandfather, who was the spit of Jim.