ST KIlda - 29 JUne. Splendid Isolation

The weather has not been great for the last 3 days – gale force 8 yesterday, not good visibility with the mist coming and going. The boats bringing visitors from Leverburgh have not been in for the last 3 days – we really have had the island to ourselves – “Splendid Isolation” indeed.



Jo enjoys the Splendid Isolation



Yesterday was a free day, so a late start and a morning spent each doing our own thing round the village – visibility not good enough for walking.  At lunch time, the weather cleared, and those people interested in walking decided where they would go. Some went to the Gap (600’) then veered east to go up Oisseval. Others went to the Gap then up Connachair. Still others went to Ruival where they watched a seal and bird watched. On the walk up Connachair, the Bonxies (Great Skuas) were at their best performing excellent aerobatics assisted by the force 8 wind.



Bonxie preparing to attack



Village form Connachair



On our return to the village, 3 hardy souls decided to do “The Chimney Challenge” . On the opposite side of Village Bay from the MoD base, there is a steep gulley (called The Chimney”), and there is a tradition of seeing how quickly one can run from the base, up the Chimney, and touch a cleit at the top.  All three of our heroes did it, and rather than pick anyone out, we feel that they were all winners.



Sara Jana and Ken prepare to set off



Food plays an important part in our day – the group work hard -  we are outside all day, and on days off, everyone gets a real appetite.  Our cook Alison has planned everything is great detail – although we have bread frozen in the freezer, each day she bakes Sourdough bread from her own culture that she brought with her.  I understand that she is culturing enough to give everyone in the group who wants a culture to take away, and instructions for growing it.

Everything is made fresh – nothing tinned (though of course our pulses are dried!), so dinner is always something to look forward to. The food is excellent!  Yesterday was fish cakes followed by banana cake in which the bananas had been poached in caramel.

The plates are not small! It is indeed the fish cakes which were huge.

The kitchen rota was mentioned previously – 2 of our group each day assisting Alison. It is nice to see those not on duty getting up to help clear up at the end of meals.  Dinner is a friendly affair as people recap what they did that day, or talk about plans for the following day.



Paul and Alison preparinf dinner



Paul has shown that he is adept at doing the dishes





Oh dear!



We have been joined on the island by Alec Hartley, the National Trust for Scotland Artist in Residence. Alec has joined us onh a couple of evenings for dinner, and last night also got involved in carding the Soay wool (the ladies have some scheme to make beards for everyone based on those found in the George Washington Wilson photographs).

L-R Ken, Alec, Janice, Jana, Sara and Alison

Today was back to work, with one BIG task being to pressure hose the Manse to remove flaking paint – the exterior of the Manse is due to be repainted later this year, and the old loose flaking paint needed removed. Paul set to work – it took him 6 hours, but he got it done.



Ken, Pete (new NTS Warden) and Paul



Others continued painting bitumen on 2 of the houses, and this morning the major task was to help Kevin (the St Kilda Archaeologist) to repair a large cleit. This we have left to the end as it is such a big job, and there was a great deal of barrowing of old soil from our soil dump up to the cleit to build up the surface prior to putting the turf which Kevin has precut in place.



Sara, Janice and Ian at the last cleit we will repair.



The weather having meant that we have had no trip boats, tomorrow is Sunday, so no boats again. Our “Splendid Isolation” continues.

St KIlda - Thursday 27 June

Everyone in the work party is expected to help with communal duties – helping Alison our cook in the kitchen setting tables, clearing up, taking away waste to the skip or recycling as appropriate. There is a rota of 2 people each day who help , and everyone has been fitting in very well. Depending on what Alison has planned , one can often assist in food preparation as well as serving.  We tend to have breakfast at 8am with a view to starting work at 9, mid morning tea at 11ish, lunch 1ish, afternoon tea 4 and then stop anywher4e between 5,30 and 6.30 depending on what we are doing. The helpers also do the housework – sweeping floors and so on – everything to keep things working smoothly.



Jo (left) helps Alison (right) with dinner





Washing up! (L-R Janice, Jo, Paul and Ken)




Derek dusting the bookshelves



Work ongoing includes cleit roof repairs – an arcane art to replace sections of cleit roofs which have been eroded with new turf.  The erosion is caused by the Soay sheep grazing on the roofs (more of this later, or simply erosion because the old system of repairing roofs (now abandoned I am glad to say) did not result in good repairs as the grass ended up burnt by the preparation.

Now, one marks out the area to be replaced and cuts blocks of new turf to fit. These are cut from the turf in the locality so that the vegetation which will develop on the roof is similar to that in the area of the cleit.

CUtting the rurf to fit the gap. (L-R Kevin, Ian, Sara and Janice)

The hole in the roof of the cleit is packed out with moistened soil from our “soil bank” – broken down soil we have collected over the years, and stored in House 7. The newly cut piece of turf is soaked in water, positioned in the space prepared for it, slid under the turf above (this is done by shaping the hole and shaping the new turf to match), and then trimming it to fit exactly.  Now that we are gaining experience, we are going to attempt a large repair which will probably take 6 people at least half a day.

Kevin, Sara, Ianh and Janice lift the turf in to place




Kevin trims turf to fit



Safety is all important, and if one is at any height, ther ladder has someone at tyhe foot making sure it is stable. Fal, one of our party, is a very (and I mean “VERY”) keen botanist. AS one walks, her eyes are always aimed towards the ground. Today I noticed, that even holding a ladder she was looking at tyhe plants growing around the cleit.



Fal botanises even while holding the ladder!



Another task has been recoating the roofs of cottages 2 and 5 (the bitumen is replaced roughly on a 3 – 4 year cycle).  This is messy. The bitumen is fairly runny when it is warm, but goes stiff when the day cools down. Then one has to work ones way along the roof spreading this thick black goo with a spreader which itself gets stiffer as the day goes on.



Renate stirrs the thick gloop to spread on the roof





Ken on the roof of House 5 (our workshop)



Helicopters come and go – on Tuesdays and Fridays, we can have up to 3 flights as crew changes take place – they look fantastic as they sweep over the village.

The Orcas (trip boats) came in from Leverburgh yesterday and brought an interesting visitor.  One lady, walking down the street mentioned that her great, great grandfather had been born in House 1 (our living house) in 1805. She and her daughter had come to Harris for family reasons, and had managed to arrange a day trip to St Kilda. I took her to House 1, and showed her the Mackinnon family tree (one should never leave home without one!). On the tree, I pointed out her great, great grandfather’s name and marriage and she mentioned that he had married a lady from Harris and moved there. She was astounded and left the island really happy to go off and find out more. At the pier there was a real mix of people (3 boat loads). There I introduced her to a couple from Harris who I had spoken with in the village street. The couple asked about her great great grandfather, asked how long the family had lived on Harris and if she knew their croft. The couple knew the family, and the croft – a link made on St Kilda!

Renate (left) with Mrs MacKinnon (right) looking at the St Kilda  Mackinnon family tree

I mentioned Soay Sheep - “Soay” from the old Norse for “Sheep Island”. C1000 years ago, the Vikings find a wee island with wee dark sheep on it, and call it the Sheep Island “Soay”. The name finds its way on the maps. W come along, and find an island called Soay wityh wee dark sheep on it, so call the sheep “Soay Sheep”. The full translation of their name in to English would thus seem to become “Sheep Island Sheep”.

They are an exceptionally primitive breed of sheep – google it! Their closest5 relatives are the Mouflon of Central Europe, so they are probably direct descendants of the original sheep brought to Britain by the Neolithic peoples some 6000 years ago – here in St Kilda, they have not suffered from selective breeding for wool, milk or mutton production, so remain close to their ancestral past.

Soay go up vertical walls, so the head dyke of the Village leans outwards – likewise the wee planticruz which are found in the Village area – more on these later.

A gaggle of Soay lambs in a cleit



Jo in our party is trying ot become a NInja Soay stalker - she is finding out how one can approach them without scaring them away and this get close up pics




Soay get everywhere



Today the Polar Pioneer arrived landing 53 visitors and several crew. Our shop is where the ST Kilda Club makes a lot of money which goes directly to the NTS purely for ongoing work on St Kilda. While we are here, one of our duties is to man the shop. Did you know that it is acceptable to the GB passport office to have your passport stamped with our rubber stamp – you can only do this on Hirta as the stamp remains here all year round. Visitors also stamp books they buy, postcards and anything they can put the stamp on.

Janice (left) and Sara (right) serve visitors from the |Polar Pioneer

Day off tomorrow, so more walking for those who want to see the “Cleit at the End of the World” -  a challenge not for the faint hearted!

St Kilda - Tuesday 25 June

The last few days, we have been walking, visiting various parts of the island, and getting used to the meaning of “vertical”. When we walked to the Gap (600', c 200m above sea level), sadly the low mist meant we did not get the view, however, Ken was able to throw a stone out and watch as it fell, and fell, and fell... falling in to the sea 600' directly beneath us. That is vertical!

On our first visit to Ruival, and standing on the Mistress Stone, we paused on the way back to see how many could stand on an rather exposed boulder – we did quite well as can be seen from the picture.]

Yesterday, we went off to the Cambir  at the NW corner of Hirta. ON the way we paused at the Lovers Stone.  Traditionally, the story is that a St Kildan man, before he was allowed to marry, had to show his ability as a cragsman by standing on this stone on one foot with the toe over the edge. He then put the heel of his other foot to the toe, and leaned down to put his first to the toe of the outer foot.  The fact that St Kildans went on getting married is probably becauise this was a story designed to extract money from tourists by posing at the Stone. This would have come from the 1880s, when St Kilda slid from a barter to a money based economy.

 

The Cambir is an excellent place to get views of a) Hirta and looking the other way, of Soay

Hirta from the Cambir - wide angle lens!

 

 

 

 

 

Soay from the Cambit

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lunch at the Cambir, then off to the Amazons House and the Tunnel. 

Derek and Ken - what on earth is Derek doing to his boots?

 

 

 

 

 

Jo contemplates her lunch

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

View from the Cambir to the Tunnel (Jana, Ken and Alison)

Standing at the entrance to the Tunnel

The latter is a fantastic place – as we sat on a ledge just above the water, we had seals playing below us, and Eiders with chicks swimming in the surging seas.

 

 

The Amazons House (in Gaelic - House of the Women Warriors) - what cartographic vandal translated this to English so that it is now on all our maps?

 

The group is getting on very well and bonding nicely. Derek had seen the George Washington Wilson photographs of the St Kildans taken in 1886, and decided to make himself a St Kildan beard!

Dishes - what a team!

 

St Kilda - Sunday 23 June

The work progresses apace. Weather not great - cool, windy and damnp with the cloud hanging rond at just over 600 feet. We have now had a tour of the village - Kevin the St Kilda archaeologits walked us through the archaeology, occasionally stopping to point out tools which could quite easily be prehistoric.

Here Jo "escapes from an Iron Age Souterraine. These structures, probably for storage, can be found throughoiut the north and west of Scotland (google it!)

Soay lambs are looking good as they are still frisky and cle3an - as with domesticated sheep, the lambs form wee gangs which go marauding in the village area. They like trying to east anything, including Ranete's jacket!

Work continues apace - major work on cleit roofs and wall tumbles, but also ongoing repais to the fabric of buildings - here Paul carries out a temporary repair to the door frame of Cottage No 1 (our living room/dining room/kitchen)

 The Church (built 1829) and School room (1898) have been deep cleaned - it is noce to see people enjoying the work - a moment of great hilarity while tactics are discussed with (L - R) Jana, Jo and Janice.

One job is to sand, repair where we can, then paint the outside wood and metal work of the Church and School room - this need to repair outside woodwork is a reflection of the severity of the conditions on ST KIlda - wet and very wiondy - wood needs repainted fairly frequently, and replacing everything with PVC would not please Historic SCotland or look good on Britain's only Double World Heritage site!

As well as scraping out old paint, Ken found time to go back to school to practice his writing (he only got 4/10 for this exercise)

As well as working, we walk! ANd one of the first thingo to do is get poeple use to the St Kilda meaning of "vertical"!.. Here one member of our party stande on top of the Mistress Stone - more of vertical later!  We managed to get 7 of the party on to this stone (one at a time of course)

A couple arrived yesterday to camp for 4 dats - they are joining us this evening for dinner (being served 15 mins ago!!). Dinner calls