Katharine visits the Calanais Standing Stones on the Isle of Lewis, another popular spot for visitors, but one that is struggling under the pressure of tourism to the island
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00:00Hello, so I've made it to Callowish Stones on the Isle of Lewis. It's one of the most
00:24popular sites that people come and visit when they're visiting the Outer Hebrides. So behind
00:29me you can see the Standing Stones. They date back, well, about 5,000 years and back to the
00:36Neolithic period and they actually also predate England's Stonehenge. But I mainly came here to
00:44talk about tourism and just how the site is keeping up in the face of more and more visitors
00:51coming to the island. And just walking around it's quite clear you can see where there's
00:56signs of erosion, where there's been a lot of people walking around the stones.
01:00And I was just talking to a local archaeologist who was saying that they are very concerned
01:07about the wear and tear on the site and apparently there are talks of maybe having to close it off
01:13just to allow some of the land to sort of regenerate and get back into a stronger position
01:17to accommodate all these people coming to visit. Interestingly, they also told me that they used
01:23to have heather around the stones which would have been more robust but that was removed to
01:30make way for kind of a grassy plain to make it more accessible for people to walk up to the
01:34stones and visit them. But it looks like that's, yeah, there's been an unintended consequence
01:40perhaps with the land around the stones just not looking very stable. As I said, just walking
01:47through I can see where the grass has kind of worn away quite a bit and it's muddy. So yeah,
01:54I can understand why people are a bit concerned and want to perhaps talk about closing it off
01:58for a period of time just to allow the land to regenerate. There's also a bit of a worry that
02:05there's a new visitor centre being developed which means that the current one is closed.
02:10It also means that one of the two entrances to the site will be shut over next year whilst the
02:15building work is taking place and locals were telling me they're a bit concerned about the
02:20congestion that will happen at the entrance that remains open because it's already heavily
02:27congested in the summer when a lot of people come. So limiting people to just one entrance is going
02:32to cause problems they said. So yeah, it's just interesting to come here and I've just been
02:38walking through the Highlands over August and September where there are similar concerns about
02:43local infrastructure and whether it's capable of supporting tourists to these more rural areas.
02:52On the Isle of Lewis specifically, the port at Stornoway has been developed so
02:56it's going to be able to accommodate larger cruise ships coming in which means more visitors.
03:02And a few people I've spoken to said yes, one option is to kind of improve the infrastructure,
03:07for example build bigger roads to accommodate these buses and camper vans. But there are also
03:12people who say that's not what they want to happen. Mitigating the effects of tourism
03:19needs to come from the source rather than the island having to respond and develop
03:25which would end up changing quite a lot of why people like to come here.
03:31That being the single track roads, the less developed areas, it's something that
03:38gives the island its charm and makes it distinct from other places in the UK and around the world.
03:44So yeah, I'm going to be staying on the island a little bit longer for a few more days and then
03:48I'll head down to Harris and hopefully visit Uist as well just to carry on documenting and hearing
03:55the important conversations that are going on in these island communities. As always you can
04:01find my stories on the Scotsman website under a section called Hay's Way and I also have an
04:06Instagram page where I add pictures and anecdotes of my trip which I've been doing for the last
04:12seven months now which you can find by searching at rural underscore cat with a k.