We left the medieval church at Rodel rather reluctantly… not just because there was still so much we wanted to explore, but because it meant we were heading north once again towards Tarbert and the ferry. Our time on the island was fast running out, but what we had managed to see in the short time we had been there was quite incredible… even we could barely believe it… and we still had a little time to spare.

There was something we had seen on the drive south… a group of pillars in the machair. It was all the excuse we needed to stop again. They could have been standing stones, but, on closer inspection, turned out to be trees, bleached silver by wind and weather.

We wandered across the dunes for a little while, neither of us showing any enthusiasm for returning to the car or the port. The scale of the landscape, the soft sands, the sunlit, flower-strewn grass and the sense of latent possibility were enchanting, in the truest sense of the word. We had no desire to break the spell.

But the clock was ticking. We regained the car and did not stop again until we could see inlet, full of little islets and the ferry-port of Tarbert far below us. There we paused, because we had time, to drink in the magic and beauty, as if preparing for a drought.

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