Last month I had an extraordinary opportunity to spend a day on Loch Rog to set foot on four of its now uninhabited isles. The boatman picked me up at Bosta beach, at the north tip of Great Bernera—the 'Best Beach' as it's called by the locals. To get to Bosta I had to cross the Bernera Bridge, which I'd last traversed in 2019. As I approached the bridge things looked quite different. The road suddenly curved right and, instead of leading to the 100-foot-long pre-stressed concrete bridge of 1953, took me across a brand new, steel-girder bridge, which was opened in December of 2021.
Once over the bridge, I climbed to the standing stones of Callanaish VI to take a photo of the old and new bridges. Standing side by side above the swift-flowing waters of Struth Earshader, the bridges are the reason Great Bernera is still a vibrant, living island.
Vibrant and thriving is really pushing it! The place is dying on its feet. School has closed, shop has closed, church is teetering on the brink as is the use of the Gaelic language. The local council have no interest in this place due to its remoteness from Stornoway, like how they let the old bridge fall into a state of disrepair and put up a cheap temporary structure in its place. There is also a civil war going on between the few locals left and a mass of very aggressive incomers who want to buy the place out.
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