Scotland

The Outer Hebrides have been a popular destination for tourist since before the tourism industry began with places such as St. Kilda being of great interest to travelers, explorers and anthropologists. It would seem that the interest in St Kilda has continued to grow since it was evacuated in secrecy at the beginning of the twentieth century. More recently other aspects of the Hebrides, such as the spectacular scenery, the breathtaking beaches and the splendid archaeological sites, have caused an upsurge in interest once again and the demands upon Hebrides accommodation have never been higher.

Tourism has, for a great many years, played a vital role in the Scottish economy and the Scottish Government works hard to ensure it’s continued growth. A good few years ago the official tourism bodies in Scotland went through some major changes and much of the responsibilities of the Scottish Tourist Board were transferred to a company called Visit Scotland.  Heavily funded by the state Visit Scotland works to promote Scotland across the globe and there has been massive investment in their online presence in VisitScotland.com. While you may think that selling the Hebrides would be an easy task it would appear that the Visit Scotland sites (including the Visit Hebrides site) are failing in their responsibility to provide Scottish and Hebrides accommodation. Many owners of hotels and guest houses across Scotland have grown rather annoyed at Visit Scotland’s failure to supply them with customers (which I assume is their main task?). So much so that nearly all accommodation suppliers now have their own web sites competing against each other for the top places on the search engines.

Visitors to the Hebrides, wishing to book their hotel, guest house, bed and breakfast or self catering accommodation, face the daunting task of wading through countless web sites in the search for something suitable. Surely it would make more sense to just go to one web site where all Hebrides accommodation is listed? Well, yes and this has been the responsibility of Visit Scotland and Visit Hebrides but they have failed terribly. On the 22nd of February 2008 Visit Scotland made a public statement to explain that, in the coming months, they will work to refocus their sites to have an emphasis on the provision of accommodation. While this would be exactly what many suppliers have been crying out for, for the last few year, many feel that it is too little too late. Their justification in believing this is the fact that nearly all Hebrides accommodation related searches made on virtually all search engines fail to show Official sites in the first few pages of returns. Instead a multitude of single establishment sites and massive accommodation directories have swamped the returns.

Organizations, such as Enjoy Hebrides, are attempting to create sites which are simple and easy to use. Enjoy Hebrides hopes to be able to act as a gateway to all of the individual Hebrides accommodation providers directly by listing all properties on the one site. While this has been attempted before Enjoy Hebrides have a few advantages over the other similar sites. Amongst their team are Internet entrepreneurs who have had vast experience in gaining high placements on the search engines since the Internet really began. Furthermore the site will be supported by such sites as the Virtual Hebrides which is a long standing site that focuses heavily upon the provision of information about the Hebrides such as some amazing stories from the island’s eventful history and a most interesting gallery of old photographs (found in the Scalpay section). While Enjoy Hebrides is a tiny site by comparison their aims are truly massive!

Enjoy Hebrides is a new network of web sites dedicated to the promotion of accommodation in the Hebrides of Scotland. Covering both the Inner Hebrides (including the Isle of Skye) and the Outer Hebrides/Western Isles (including the Isle of Lewis and Isle of Harris), Enjoy Hebrides aim to provide a simple and easy to use system of booking accommodation online.

One of their key aims is to provide clients (Hebrides accommodation providers) with a means to advertise their sites and properties in a low cost but highly effective manner. It is hoped that this will be achieved by all of the sites gaining high placements in search engine returns for all the searches relating to Hebrides accommodation – such a s Harris Self Catering, or Stornoway Hotels.

At the moment there are a multitude of web sites which charge from £50 to £150 for a listing. If you include only a few such sites and a listing on the official tourism sites (visithebrides.com & visitscotland.com) the cost can suddenly increase to well over £1,000 for just a single property. Enjoy Hebrides has already managed to get a few of their sites onto the front pages of the main three search engines (Google, Yahoo & MSN) and they have associate agreements with more than ten other sites catering for Hebrides accommodation. These associate agreements ensure that a client can pay Enjoy Hebrides for a listing and they will appear on all sites within the Enjoy Hebrides network that are applicable to their accommodation PLUS any of the associated  sites that match their criteria.

Through advertising a property with Enjoy Hebrides an accommodation provider will simply have to pay a small fee to one company rather than various fees to various web sites. This not only reduces the cost to the client but also simplifies the whole process of gaining listings.

The project is still very much in it’s early stages of development but there are already ten sites in the network and at least another ten sites that are associates. With a further ten accommodation sites being developed that will make a total of more than thirty such sites on which a property could appear.

With the amazing success of their first sites EnjoyHebrides.com have rushed to provide a support portal at EnjoyHebrides.co.uk. Unfortunately, because this immediate success was unexpected, the support portal is rather low on content. Currently there is a list of the active sites within the Enjoy Hebrides network and a, simple to use, helpdesk. Sadly there is no list showing the associate sites or those sites due to be developed but a company representative says that these will be listed shortly together with other support features such as a members only section which will include such things as tutorials on Internet promotion and SEO techniques. The company representative stated that the Enjoy Hebrides network support portal is not a sales portal and will be wholly geared towards helping Hebrides accommodation suppliers gain a better understanding of the Internet, it’s many benefits and some of the common pitfalls that many fall into so easily.

Over the weekend, on the small island of the Isle of Harris in the Western Isles of Scotland, a small primary School was almost destroyed by fire. Such an incident occurring in a city school would raise suspicion of arson but in the close knit community of Harris the locals suspect a more sinister cause.

Sir E Scott Primary School is in the main town of Tarbert and is housed in a wonderful listed building but is now in a terrible state following the fire of Saturday the 8th March 2008. Much to the alarm of everyone in the area the schools fire alarm system appears to have failed. Now this would immediately cast suspicion upon the Local Council and many would, ordinarily, assume that such a system would only fail if it had not been properly maintained. However I think that the reason it failed was the fault of the poor quality of electrical supply which continually destroys electrical equipment and certain ensures that all electrical goods last for a much lesser time on the islands than elsewhere.

In recent years I have recorded several spikes which have gone off the scale and burnt out lightbulbs before failing or dropping to well below the minimum voltage required. The truth is that dips in the power supply can cause as much, and sometimes more, damage than a spike. This terrible event is then exacerbated by the fact that it always seems to spike following a dip.

For a period of several months I had the electrical supply to my home examined because of the ridiculous number of spikes and troughs. I was disconnected from the rest of the houses in my street and put directly onto the mains (the rest of the street goes through a transformer). Unfortunately there was only a slight improvement so I now have UPS and surge protection on all electrical items in the home. Sadly I can not afford one of sufficient size to cover all electrical circuits so I have just learn to live with the fact that light bulbs only last a week or two at times.

Now the Isle of Harris has been suffering this for at least five or six years that I know of. When I moved to my current address the power supply was so bad I began to record it. I have had my equipment calibrated and it is 100% acurate. I even had a guy from the council record at the same time as me and his machine had been calibrated that morning – both machines showed spikes and toughs of the same levels.

I have already heard rumours that the electrical supply was faulty just prior to the outbreak of fire but it seems to me that if the power supply was so poor that it caused the fire it would only be a matter of seconds before the power circuits/fuses within the buildings would have tripped. Unless the fire alarm system had battery back-up power surely this would explain the failure of the system to be activated? I wonder if it is discovered that the fuses had been tripped that such a fact would be covered up?

Now I wonder this because there have been a number of unexplained fires recently and a dodgy mains electric supply could easily explain them all. However if this is true this is an absolute disaster as the cost of fixing the problem is ridiculously high and unlikely to be carried out by the electric companies involved. Last time there was a problem the local council ended up paying the electric company a sum of about £30,000 to install the equipment to provide an adequate power supply to their housing property on South Harris.

Is it not logical that the massive increases in demand for electrical energy on the Isle of Harris would, eventually, lead to a need to upgrade the systems? I hope that they get to the bottom of the fire quickly and that they investigate the ongoing problems with the electrical supply as quickly as possible. It is only by chance that there has, so far, been no loss of life and I hope and pray that things get sorted before a tragedy occurs.

The islands found around the Scottish coast are some of the most beautiful to be seen in the world. The Isle of Harris lies off the West coast in a group of islands known as the Outer Hebrides, some of the remotest islands in the United Kingdom. Harris is sparsely populated with a population of less than 3,000 souls and yet the tiny island has had a surprising impact upon Scotland and the wider world.

The native language of the Isle of Harris is Gaelic but the vast majority of the folk are bilingual and speak English extremely well in a pleasant, gentle and rolling tone. At the very center of Gaelic culture Harris is almost unique, many of the houses are stone built and, usually, painted white creating picture postcard scenes around every corner of the winding and twisting single track roads.

In many ways a visit to the Isle of Harris is rather like traveling back in time to an idyllic time when everything about life was good. Crime rates are so low that children can play without fear or danger, car doors can be left unlocked without fear of theft and even a home can be left open for the day while out visiting or working with out the fear of burglary. It is for these reasons that many who take their annual vacations on Harris seriously consider relocation, many take the giant step and set up home on the island. However, most move away after only a few years, mainly because they had been ill prepared for the seriously windy and wet winters but also for the fact that life there is so drastically different than anywhere else in the U.K. that they suffer what could be termed ‘culture shock’.

The Isle of Harris is best enjoyed during spring and early to mid summer. Camping is extremely popular but if you really want to experience the true nature of this wonderful island you should seriously consider bed and breakfast on Harris. There are a large number of high quality guest houses on the Isle of Harris and all offer the most friendly service possible. Most rooms have spectacular views across lochs, out across the Atlantic or the treacherous waters of the Minch or across moorland with incredible mountains as a backdrop.

Self catering on Harris is becoming extremely popular, so popular that it is sometimes nearly impossible to find a cottage or house for rent so it is advisable to search online well in advance of your vacation. Various properties are available to let and the variety is amazing ranging from luxury hi-tech chalets to traditional stone built ‘whitehouses’. If you are looking for truly unique vacation there is even a traditional ‘blackhouse’ available to rent. A blackhouse is similar to a cottage, a single storey building with a thatch roof and very, very thick stone built walls with deep set windows. Fitted to a very high standard there isn’t anywhere else more cozy.

If you are planning a vacation on the Isle of Harris spend a little time investigating what the island has to offer. Some of the finest beaches in the world are often only a few minutes walk from your accommodation and some of the most amazing historical sites can be found a short drive away. Harris is an excellent base for exploring the Hebrides as it is within easy access to the Isle of Lewis and only a short ferry crossing from North and South Uist and the other southern isles.

Andrew Kelly has lived in the Hebrides of Scotland for 16 years. Initially concentrating on accommodation in the Hebrides he began writing for the Internet he began writing about vacations in Scotland in general and has now published tens of thousands of pages and articles across many popular sites.

Highland cattle are a distinctive breed of ancient Scottish beef cattle. Known also as longhorn, the highland cow can be seen around the world and breeding stock has been exported from Scotland to places such as Australia and North America where they are popular due to their hardy nature and excellent lean meat. These lovely. loveable, thick coated and long haired creatures are the popular subjects of landscape and bovine artists and appear on countless picture postcards.

Originally the breed was actually two, one being purely black and the other being a very reddish brown. Although the breed has has remained almost unchanged for centuries it is now possible to find highlanders of various shades including the occasional beast that appears almost white. Pedigree Highland Cattle, stock bulls and 1st Class show winners fetch enormous sums of money at auction and owners of a fold (herd) of pure bred highland cattle are rightfully proud of their achievements in building such a collection of fine beasts.

The Highland Cattle Society (www.highlandcattlesociety.com) is a Scottish charity provides a wealth of information about the highlander and related news. The Society helps maintain the breed standard much of it based on the overall appearance of the animal with a dedication to such things as the hair. Most aspects of the breed are agreed upon but fierce debate continues on which is the preferable color – black, brindled, red, yellow, or dun?

The best place to see highland cattle is in their native environment. Their thick long coats protect them from the harsh weather encountered on the Scottish moors and mountains. Folds roam freely in rural districts of Scotland and, although most places are fenced, it is always wise for drivers to take great care when driving through country roads. In places like the highlands of Scotland, and especially the Hebrides, the animals roam freely and traffic is often brought to a standstill by a group of cattle taking a stroll up the road. If faced by such you should always keep in mind that these animals are extremely strong and can easily knock a grown man to the ground with only a slight glance, worse still, if you happen to get caught between a highlander and hard place (such as your car) it is going to leave you in a sorry state.

The safest place to view highland cattle is at one of the many country shows or highland games where the animals compete for the prestigious title of 1st Class Show Winner. Owners can be see grooming their prize bull and visitors are allowed to watch closely at most shows. Country shows and highlands games are a fantastic day out for all of the family and they are not exclusive to Scotland. Places such as Canada have highland games on a grand scale.

Owners are also likely to view cattle at the market or auction. Auctions are held up and down the country and news of upcoming sales (and shows) can be found on the Highland Cattle Society’s web site. Pedigree sales are held throughout the year in Perth and Oban and are usually held a day after a show and the prize winners proudly display their rosettes while being paraded in front of prospective buyers.

If you find that you are unable to visit a show you may be interested in a visit to The Highland Cattle Visitors Centre (www.thehighlandcattlecentre.co.uk)which is located in the Tyne Valley. The center has a number of facilities to ensure a fun day out such as pets corner, a coffee shop, a picnic area and field walks. Children are able to get up close and personal in a safe environment. You can even sponsor an animal.

Andrew Kelly has lived in the Hebrides of Scotland for 16 years. Initially concentrating on accommodation in the Hebrides he began writing for the Internet he began writing about vacations in Scotland in general and has now published tens of thousands of pages and articles across many popular sites.

The Soapman, Lewis, Harris and Lord Leverhulme by Roger Hutchison is a wonderful factual book that reads like a novel. The book has received the most incredible reviews and the reasons are plentiful. The coherent narrative describes in vivid detail the struggles of the Scottish Highland lower classes, at the beginning of the Twentieth Century, against the upper classes and nouveau riche.

The Highland Clearances had such an impact that it’s reverberations were carried around the world and remain an emotive subject today. During the clearances whole village societies were uplifted from quality arable land so that rich landowners could install lucrative sheep farms or graze deer for shooting. The poor souls who had eked out a poor living from the land for generations were now either dumped on rocky unproductive coastal land or shipped abroad to Canada, Australia or some other distant and strange land.

As a result there are Highlanders all over the world and many Scots have played important and influential role in the development of our Western society the principles of which we all hold dearly. Many of these principles are deeply engrained in the Scottish psyche and were brought to the world during the period of Scottish Enlightenment and by the many Scots who settled outside their native homeland. It is incredible that so many of the discoveries and inventions, which we all now take for granted, have Scottish origins. Some of the world’s greatest leaders were either born in Scotland or were of Scottish descent.

In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s Scotland was a deeply religious nation with nearly every member of society being a conscientious Calvanist. Life then was harsh and uncompromising and death by starvation was still common and the harshest of conditions were to be found in the Hebrides of Scotland. The Hebridean folk are a hardy proud race and in the Great War (WWI) the Isles of Lewis, Harris and the rest of the Hebrides sent more of their young men to fight than anywhere else in the whole of the United Kingdom.

The Soapman describes the clash of interests between the eminent liberal industrialist Lord Leverhulme and the 30,000 inhabitants of this incredible group of islands off the west coast of Scotland. Leverhulme had purchased the Isle of Lewis in 1918 believing that he could revolutionize and industrialize the main town of Stornoway by building up the fishing industry.

In contrast to Leverhulme’s vivid dreams of transforming the small town of Stornoway into the “Venice of the North“, the vast majority of islanders sought only to have a small piece of land on which they could grow sufficient produce to feed themselves. Only a few years before the outbreak of the First World War the Government had promised to provide sufficient crofts (small pieces of land) to any person who wanted one. Servicemen had been promised that they would return to a land fit for heroes where they could spend the rest of their lives as crofters (smallholders).

The Soapman had made his riches through hard work, good judgment and an amount good fortune. He was highly successful his Sunlight Soap was known throughout civilized society and his model town of Port Sunlight near Liverpool, England was a shining example of vision of the future. He was a deeply religious man who saw his purpose in life was to improve the lot of the working man but by his methods and his methods only. Lord Leverhulme was a stubborn man and he refused to allow his, recently purchased land to be transformed from large farms to small crofts.

The battle lines were drawn and Roger Hutchison’s book draws you into this incredible conflict in such a personal and deeply moving story that leaves you feeling as though it happened only yesterday and that you had been involved.

I can only describe this book as a magnificent achievement that almost anybody will find an enjoyable, highly informative and incredibly interesting read.

Published by Birlinn Limited

ISBN-10: 1841583278

ISBN-13: 978-1841583273

Andrew Kelly has lived in the Hebrides of Scotland for 16 years. Initially concentrating on accommodation in the Hebrides he began writing for the Internet he began writing about vacations in Scotland in general and has now published tens of thousands of pages and articles across many popular sites.

The capital city of Scotland, Edinburgh, is one of Europe’s most beautiful. The city has an incredible number of historic buildings from different periods of it’s history. The Georgian New Town has countless classical style buildings while the Old Town has buildings that are far older. Many travel to Edinburgh to enjoy one of the great many festivals where it is possible to enjoy world class performances by world renowned artists.

Growing in popularity is the phenomenon of ghost tours, with such great public demand for spooky tours of Edinburgh there are now a few available. Some of the finer tours have tour guides dressed in period costume and employ the services of actors and actresses to act out the roles of Edinburgh’s most famous ghostly characters. Nearly all guided tours of Edinburgh make mention of at least one of the city’s ghosts but if you are really interested in matters of the spirit world you can’t beat the professional ghost tours but be prepared to have your pants scared off you.

Scotland’s past is full of horrendous events, mass slaughters, mass murders and evil witchcraft. The deeply religious Scottish have always had a close relationship with the spiritual and throughout history there are numerous ghostly tales of woe. Many of Edinburgh’s ancient ghosts persist in haunting the nation’s capital to this day.

One such haunting is that of a Major Weir who lived at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Even though the street on which he lived, in the West Bow of the city, has long since gone, it is still possible to hear him wandering in the vicinity. Many people have reported seeing him walking, with his distinctive black staff, around the streets of Edinburgh. More alarmingly there have been reports of him being sighted riding a ghostly black horse and many have reported the sounds of galloping horses or the noise of horse and cart (which is said to be the devil himself traveling to meet Major Weir).

Major Weir lived quietly with his sister, Grizel, and was generally regarded as a pious man. Wherever he went he could be recognized by his habit of swinging his long black staff which he had with him at all times. One day when he was about to present a prayer in his local church he chose to reveal to the congregation that he had been leading a double life. Outwardly he was a respectable pillar of society but behind the closed doors of his Edinburgh home he practiced witchcraft with the aid of his sister. Weir was examined by physicians and declared sane so there was no alternative but to try him for his deeds. He and his sister were found guilty of witchcraft and executed. Weir was strangled and burnt with his staff which was said to come alive in the flames. His home remained empty for most of the following 150 years, with nearly all inhabitants reporting strange apparitions, until it was demolished in the mid nineteenth century.

Edinburgh has many other famous ghosts who continue to haunt the city. Many of the hotels in Edinburgh can be found to be in old fine buildings which have been fully modernized to provide top class service. If you are planning a vacation in Scotland why not consider spending some time in one of these wonderful hotels and taking one, or two, of the popular ghost tours? I would suggest that it will help to create a most memorable vacation.

Of course not all of Edinburgh’s hotels are in older buildings many are in modern designer type buildings offering world class accommodation for the discerning traveler. Take a look online and you will see that there is a truly massive selection of accommodation on offer, something to satisfy everyone.

Andrew Kelly writes widely for travel sites with his main interests being Scotland, England and Wales. However, when he stays in hotels in Europe he uses his experiences in his writing and reviews.

Bed and breakfast Guest Houses across Scotland could be breaking the law by stating that their accommodation includes a Jacuzzi. It is therefore vitally important that any such Scottish accommodation providers take note of this post!

You really need to ask yourself “is my Jacuzzi legal?” Now this might sound strange but, if you are like me, you may not have realised that the word ‘Jacuzzi’ is actually a fully registered brand name. So, unless you actually do own a Jacuzzi you should not use the brand name anywhere on your web site or literature. So go check your site and immediately change any such mention to something like ‘whirlpool bath’.  Otherwise you may find yourself in legal hot water.

The Jacuzzi company are currently issuing many threats to web sites that are falling foul of this little known fact. The fact that the companies brand name has become so widely known in association with whirlpool baths is credit to their marketing abilities but, in the same breath, it has also become part of the English language.

It is strange how such brand names become a common part of the English language. How many of us say we are going to ‘Hoover’ the living room or how many times have you asked your kids if they want a ‘coke’ or lemonade? The truth is that we should really say vacuum rather than ‘Hoover’ and cola instead of ‘Coke’ as Coke and Hoover are actually registered brand names.

Now in everyday life of course we are going to continue using such brand names in a generic fashion but the minute we commit such language to paper (or web page etc.) we really need to be 100% aware of such matters. If you have a Jacuzzi whirlpool bath in your B&B then it is fine to state this on your site but if the whirlpool bath is made by another company you may not, under any circumstances us the word Jacuzzi to describe it.

Now this might sound ridiculous to some but in the United Kingdom you could find yourself in very serious trouble if you use such words incorrectly. Imagine if you stated on a web page that all rooms had a Jacuzzi with other facilities such as a Hoover in every room and complimentary Coke in the mini fridge. You could, actually, find your self in court facing 4 complaints. 1 from Hoover, 1 from Coke, 1 from Jacuzzi and 1 from the customer who did not get exactly what was described in the contract!

So if you are an accommodation provider make sure that your descriptions are 100% accurate or you could find yourself in trouble. This year Jacuzzi have already approached a number of such web sites with threats of court action within 14 days if the mention of their brand name is not removed.

Now I am off to consult with my lawyers as to how many times I have been in breach of this in this article alone?