I’m up in the Outer Hebrides and found a couple of great little explores at a place called Loch Skipport on the island of South Uist.
Once you arrive in Loch Skipport the single track road splits into two. Turn right and you pass a cracking abandoned croft house which still has many original features and furniture left inside, abandoned decades ago. But since we don’t “do†little houses on 28DL, I won’t say any more. However, at the end of the road there are some spaces to park a car if you only have 2WD, and then the track continues and gets pretty bumpy, with a couple of tight switchbacks leading down to a fabulous old decaying wooden pier.
At a quick glance you might think it’s just an old fishing pier, but it’s actually where the big cargo steamers from the mainland used to unload supplies in the early part of the 20th century. And the switchbacks were cut into the rock by hand, to enable access to the small Hebridean port. This first colour photo is taken on the first of two switchbacks - the exact same one you can see in the historic b&w pic...
I’d love to have a diving suit and go exploring underwater – I can only imagine a treasure-trove of items dropped overboard and sitting in the sludge on the sea bottom waiting to be found.
As well as the slowly decaying pier, there are other remnants fixed into the rock face alongside the pier – presumably used to secure the big vessels whilst in port. A truly stunning place.
Trace your steps back to where the road splits, and you can follow it down to what seems to have previously been the local office of Marine Harvest, which operate salmon farms all over Scotland. I’d previously always thought this building was “liveâ€, but some reading online suggests it has now closed.
At the end of the road, you come to their office building. Despite a 2012 calendar hanging inside, it looks pretty much abandoned, with not much left inside to see. The calendar is confusing, as articles online suggest this place shut up shop several years earlier!
Once you arrive in Loch Skipport the single track road splits into two. Turn right and you pass a cracking abandoned croft house which still has many original features and furniture left inside, abandoned decades ago. But since we don’t “do†little houses on 28DL, I won’t say any more. However, at the end of the road there are some spaces to park a car if you only have 2WD, and then the track continues and gets pretty bumpy, with a couple of tight switchbacks leading down to a fabulous old decaying wooden pier.
At a quick glance you might think it’s just an old fishing pier, but it’s actually where the big cargo steamers from the mainland used to unload supplies in the early part of the 20th century. And the switchbacks were cut into the rock by hand, to enable access to the small Hebridean port. This first colour photo is taken on the first of two switchbacks - the exact same one you can see in the historic b&w pic...
I’d love to have a diving suit and go exploring underwater – I can only imagine a treasure-trove of items dropped overboard and sitting in the sludge on the sea bottom waiting to be found.
As well as the slowly decaying pier, there are other remnants fixed into the rock face alongside the pier – presumably used to secure the big vessels whilst in port. A truly stunning place.
Trace your steps back to where the road splits, and you can follow it down to what seems to have previously been the local office of Marine Harvest, which operate salmon farms all over Scotland. I’d previously always thought this building was “liveâ€, but some reading online suggests it has now closed.
At the end of the road, you come to their office building. Despite a 2012 calendar hanging inside, it looks pretty much abandoned, with not much left inside to see. The calendar is confusing, as articles online suggest this place shut up shop several years earlier!
