Part of The Internet Guide to Scotland featuring Accommodation - Books - Outdoor Activities - Travel Tips Castles - Features - Photos - E-Postcards Produced by Joanne Mackenzie-Winters Epilogue to my journey
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As the Number 295 bus that used to take me to work every day in Paris was the beginning, so the coach that took me from Skye back to Inverness was the end. When I rode through the suburbs of the French Metropolis, I looked out, not on grey streets and office blocks, but on a dreamscape of Scottish rivers and mountains. Once there in the islands, I walked amongst realities that far exceeded all my hopes: from my first sight of Goatfell mountain on Arran and my delight on entering Fingal's Cave, through my joy at glimpsing Harris across the waves and my emotional arrival in Tarbert where my grandmother was born, to my quasi-mystical experience of crossing the causeway of Eilean Donan Castle and my final fulfilment in the heart of the Quiraing. Every single step of the way, the timeless nature of Scotland provided me with a key to both the past and present. Even if I'm still not sure exactly what it was I was searching for on my journey, I know that somehow I found it up there in the hills, by the sea and in the song of the wind. Now I hold every moment in my mind, another dreamscape created for myself out of memories that urge me to return. And when that intense longing stirs within me, my heart seems somehow to leap and join up with the islands. I close my eyes and I am back there once again. From the soft beaches of Barra, up through the naked landscape of Harris, to the mysterious standing stones of Lewis, the Western Isles will always be the home of my soul.
The Internet Guide to Scotland
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Copyright Joanne Mackenzie-Winters
May 1998
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