Читать книгу Walking on Harris and Lewis. 30 day walks exploring the islands онлайн

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Many guidebooks stick firmly with the English version of placenames. To me, this smacks of linguistic imperialism. It is also not very helpful for those using the guides. Most likely you are going to be using this guide in conjunction with an Ordnance Survey map, where places and features are nearly always labelled in Gaelic, Norse or some hybrid of the two. Following that convention, I have chosen to use names taken directly from the OS maps throughout the text, making it much easier to follow route descriptions.

However, despite Ordnance Survey’s laudable policy on using Gaelic or Norse places names and the lengths it goes to when updating maps, all of which can be read on the OS website, naming on OS maps is far from consistent. For instance, neighbouring lochs at NB128120 on OS Explorer series 458 are labelled Loch Mòr Sheilabrie and Loch Beag Sheilibridh. There are numerous other inconsistencies, and finding such anomalies can provide yet another diversion for days when bad weather keeps you indoors.