After arriving on North Uist from either of it's seaports you have two options for navigating your way South once you reach the outskirts of Lochmaddy, one road takes an almost direct route to the Benbecula Causeway and the other will swing you around the West Coast of the Island - choosing the more direct option will take you past Barpa Langass Memorial Cairn.
As you pull off of the main road into the small carpark you will find these awesome marker posts defining some of the parking spaces, they give you a feeling as though you're stepping out of the car and instantly being transported back several hundred years.
A short walk up the nearby hill (don't worry, there's a path to this one) will bring you to the chambered cairn itself. The cairn measures approx 72 feet in diameter and is just under 20 feet tall. It has been dated back to the Neolithic age, and it's roof is constructed of two huge slabs with a third slab added on top of these - it may look like it's been made entirely of small stones, but these are only to cover the slabs etc in line with a normal looking cairn.
There is one single entrance to the cairn which is found on the East side, and surprisingly you can still enter one of the chambers even though the structure has partially collapsed over the years.
Sunday 18 October 2009
The Marker Posts
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