Three stones and a duck on Hirta.

From the head wall of Gleann Mor we made for the precipitous SW coast of Hirta. I wanted to see the Lover's Stone. A potential bridegroom reputedly had to balance on the edge of this 45 degree slab that rises above the drop below. Possibly it was just a story for the Victorian tourists, but it was a good one. Unfortunately my knee was by now hurting a bit and I did not fancy scrambling down for an inspection! However it was a great viewpoint to see the cliffs of Mullach Bi, 358m.

At the foot of Mullach Bi a long arch, Geo Creag an Arpaid effectively links the W and SW coasts of Hirta. We were able to paddle through this on our 2008 trip. We hoped to do the same on this trip!

Some people believe that St Kilda escaped glaciation. We found several places on the ridge between Mullach Bi and Claigeann Mor where rocks and stones showed striations that looked very typical of striations made by a glacier.

The tors of Claigeann Mor were rather rocky so while some of the others scrambled the ridge, I was happy to stick to the grassy slope behind.

From here we got a great view of the Ruabhal peninsula, the southern tip of Hirta, with Dun behind.

Rather than contour round the steep slopes, we rejoined the island's service road, on the branch that leads to Mullach Sgar. From this angle a grassy slope leads to the rocky tor on the summit of Ruabhal, 130m. We thought this would have a great view of Dun behind.

This is the site of yet another of Hirta's prenuptial stones; the Mistress Stone.

 I was quite happy to watch while the other's scrambled up to try their mettle...

 ...there was an easy way round the back!

With a knee like mine, there was no way I was going to balance on the edge!

Amazingly, Mistress Eider Duck, had chosen this very spot for her nest. Murdani, the captain of the Cuma, told us that she had been nesting here every year, for at least the last 8 years! I wonder how her ducklings make their way to the sea, off the Mistress Stone?

Hirta, an island of two valleys.

As we made our way down  the south ridge of Mullach Mor from the radar station...

...we got a great, bonxie's eye view of the valley down to the Village Bay area and the open ocean beyond. Away to the SE, the great stac of Levenish seemed to float above the sea.

As we descended further, we could make out every detail in the Village; the whitewashed factor's house, the curving street, the circular wall of the cemetery and the head wall that ran right round the hill side of the village were all clear. It was strange to think that this was about as much of the World as the vast majority of St Kildans ever saw.

We now made our  round the headwall...

...of Gleann Mor, the valley...

...on the NW side of Hirta. This glen was probably permanently inhabited up until 1,000 years ago when the climate was better. In more recent centuries it was inhabited only in summer. An ancient Iron Age wheelhouse, called the Amazon's House by Martin Martin in 1695, lies beneath the radar station on the slopes of Mullach Mor. The Amazon was a mythological female warrior/hunter who roamed the great lands that in legend used to connect Harris to St Kilda before sinking beneath the waves of the Atlantic.



St Kildavision, the movie!

The reason we got together to go to StKilda was to provide footage for the trip element of the second Sea Kayak with Gordon Brown DVD.

I hope you have been enjoying the StKilda Stereovision experience by following this trip, to the Islands at the Edge of the World,  from two different perspectives. You can follow our adventure both on Ian's blog and on this blog. Well now you can experience it in full St Kildavision in Simon's Video Diary teaser...

St Kilda Sea Kayaking, Video Diary 3 from Simon Willis on Vimeo.

Does your radar pick up UFOs? "No Comment"

From Conachair we made our way over to the neighbouring summit of Mullach Mor which is festooned with masts and...

 ...radar domes. They track test missiles fired from the South Uist rocket range. The range and the tracking station were built in 1957. I am sure they track other things as well...

 ..but when I asked the friendly QinetiQ employee if they they had tracked a UFO early on Sunday morning, he replied with a firm "No comment.". A case of "We didn't see no UFO's" then!

From the Radar Station we looked down on Glen Bay and...

...An Campar which stretches away to...

...Soay in the distance. What a location to work in!

And the morning commute isn't too bad either, though they do need to check the wind speed before setting off, in case the LandRover gets blown away into the sea!

Simon Willis has published his latest video diary including the St Kilda trip. See it here.

Air combat above Connachair, St Kilda

We climbed from the gap towards the summit of Conachair, keeping clear of the cliff edge.

Just below the summit of Conachair we came across the sad remains of an RAF Beaufighter aircraft. We had already seen its other propeller beside the chapel by the shore. We bowed our heads thinking of the deaths of two young men Sgt William Duxbury  and Sgt Stanley Thornton both of the RAFVR. Their bodies were never recovered as most of the wreckage plunged on over the cliff and into the sea over 400m below.

On the night of 3-4 June 1943, during WW2, their Bristol Beaufighter (number LX798) was on a navigational training exercise from the RAF base near Port Ellen on Islay.  They had probably been out to Rockall before making for St Kilda where it crashed into Conachair. Here is a moving first hand account of another Beaufighter crew from Islay that flew over Rockall and St Kilda then crashed over Eire but survived to tell the tale.

As we approached the summit of Connachair, we came under sustained aerial attack from another type of air fighter...

...bonxies or skuas swept in at head height...

making straight for our eyes.

These aggressive but undoubtedly fearless birds clearly owned the summit plateau...

...and were not going to give up without a fight.

They soared round the slopes in a display of aerial mastery. Bonxies are a relatively recent immigrant to St Kilda. They prey on the gannets, harrying them till they give up their catch. They also eat the remains of the Soay sheep that now litter Hirta, since the departure of the St Kildans. Some years 1,000 sheep will dye of starvation and parasites. On my last visit in 2008, I saw a pair of bonxies eating a live lamb, while its mother stood by helpless. Every time she moved in the bonxies went for her eyes. I suspect that the arrival of the bonxies is due to the complete lack of animal husbandry of the Soay sheep.

We kept clear of anywhere they landed...

...in case that is where their nests were.

One in particular...

...repeatedly went for Ian.

..and struck him on the head. We were quite glad when they stopped following us.

A climb to the Gap on Hirta, St Kilda.

After lunch we snoozed for a bit then walked back up through the village towards...

...the gap between Connachair and Oisebhal. On the way we passed some unusually shaped stone enclosures...

...at An Lag Bho 'n Tuath.

We then followed a line of ceitean upwards towards the still distant skyline...

...getting hotter all the time...

...so frequent stops to admire the view below us...

...were the order of the day.

At last we approached the edge of the World  and looked over...

 ...to Boreray and the stacs.

We posed on the edge for each other's photos.

It was at this spot that the St Kildans would lower themselves on ropes over the cliffs to catch fulmars. We could hardly bring ourselves to look down...

...peering over the edge, we were looking down...

...on the highest sea cliffs in the British Isles.

This is the sea level view of the cliffs under Conachair from our 2008 trip. Brada Stac in the foreground is 165m high which gives some sense of the scale. The highest cliffs are actually behind us.