Sanday.

Normally we would have devoted a couple of leisurely days to yesterdays walk but we knew there was a weather front heading our way and due to arrive sometime on Monday hence the long day.We thought we might just have a sunny morning before it hit later on.We awoke to a view of the mountains on Rum but unfortunately it was only the bottom 500 feet No blue sky today,only shades of grey.The ferry was due to leave shortly after 2pm so we reckoned we would have time to walk round Sanday to visit the sea stacks and be back for 1pm leaving time for a coffee and to pack the tents away.

We wandered back along the islands main track  passing the Post Office...

...and shortly afterwards passed St.Columba`s Chapel.

Thirty years of climbing and hillwalking together and mostly we don`t have to say anything to each other,communication is telepathic and instant.We exchanged a quick glance, doubled back, entered the chapel and took turns praying for some blue sky and sunshine

If God did exist and was capable of some sort of mind reading technique he would know we weren`t exactly believers by any stretch of the imagination. Uhm...what to do...? Ah,a bribe was required..! We pooled the change in our pockets and put it into the jar for the restoration fund .Surely  the sun would come out after such munificence.! In high spirits now we walked along to the new bridge over to Sanday.At the far end of the bridge there was what looked like a shrine of sorts,the kind of thing that`s quite common in southern Europe.We wandered over to investigate further....

As the skies were still smoky grey in colour we piled on a few nice sea shells as further offerance  to add as a back up to our earlier bribe down the road.We now headed in anti-clockwise direction around the Sanday coastline and a few minutes saw us on the beach.
The beach looked a bit more inviting the previous evening....

The beach on Sanday the next morning....

 A flat boggy section ensued along the top of some smallish cliffs with views back over to Canna House and the harbour.....

...... before we turned up to bag Tallabric,the island`s highest point .There seemed to be a quite a few great skuas around this area.

After traversing round the inlet at Suileabhaig the scenery became a bit wilder as the cliffs grew bigger.

Eventually we reached the sea stacks of Dun Mor and Dun Beag.
Puffins nest  on the summit of Dun Mor but we were just a few weeks late to see them.

Dun Mor.

Dun Beag.

We`d dallied around thus far and were running out of time to visit the lighthouse perched at the far end  so cut across the island aiming in the direction of St.Edwards Church.
The twenty or so year round residents have three churches to choose from it seems although poor St.Edwards was locked up and seems to be the cause of some concern as regards it`s future due to lack of maintenance.Nice building in a spectacular landscape as this pic from the previous day shows...

Notice the coo bottom right pretending to be a Belted Galloway
A hundred yards or so took us down to the land rover track that runs round from here to the main pier.We stopped and had a chat with the Eilidh,the Canna school teacher who was out for a walk with her kids.Funnily enough I had been talking to her mother in law on the ferry over and we reckoned her husband would know my father from the British Legion Club up in Turriff . Small world
Along the road towards the houses on Sanday.

We soon discovered why the few vehicles on Canna are of the four wheel drive variety.Bob struggled with his two legged drive. The road at high tide...

Back over the bridge we paused for a moment at the chapel and pondered whether we should go back in and ask for a rebate on our donation due to the lack of sunshine.We were in good humour however and decided to let God off with it on this ocassion

In the finest tradition of the blog we leave you with a sunny blue sky photo from the previous day taken from Tota Tarra looking over to the Isle of Rum.It took ages to train this seagull to get it`s timing right

If you ever go to Canna then do yourself a favour and go for at least three or four days...don`t be put off by the size of it.It may be small but it is action packed.! We`ll be back again soon