There was another cyclist staying at the hostel and he was getting the ferry as well.  He was a retired German gentleman - he was spending a number of weeks in Scotland traveling between hostels mainly by bus (you can put your bike on a bus apparently!) and then cycling around the local areas.

As the ferry was leaving, I saw the Sea Harris guys and their boat (Enchanted Isle) preparing another trip - they go to other islands as well (the Shiants in particular), so they might not have been going to St. Kilda.  Wherever they were heading, it was going to be wetter and choppier than yesterday's trip!

The ferry was somewhat slower than the Enchanted Isle.  It's only a short crossing (about an hour), so I settled down with a local paper and my book.  I was amused that one of my friend's bands was headlining a music festival in Stornoway in a week or so.  Wish I had been able to hook up - I sent Jon a text and he replied that another friend was also in the Outer Hebrides and was planning to go to the show.

We landed at Berneray - a small island now joined to North Uist via a huge causeway.  The hostel I was staying at was only about 2 or 3 miles away from the ferry terminal, and I had originally planned to drop my bags there and then do a loop of North Uist before coming back to the hostel to camp.  For whatever reason, I thought I would now prefer to keep my options open and headed over the causeway onto North Uist

The earlier rain was clearing - so I felt pretty optimistic for the day.  I hadn't eaten breakfast - so my plan was to circle the island clockwise, stopping at Lochmaddy for breakfast.

One of the first things of interest I saw was Dun An Stior - a broch in the middle of a loch.  This was a great defensive position obviously.  There would have been causeways linking the broch with the land etc.  This was the heart of a sizable community.

As I rode on, I noticed that my cycle computer wasn't indicating whether I was faster or slower than my current average speed.  Upon investigation, the average speed had stopped working!  It now just showed E - I had never ridden so far on one trip before, so I don't know if it is a problem with that.  It happened at about 313 miles and 27 odd hours of riding - the trip hour counter does only go up to 9 hours 59 minutes 59 seconds - but it seemed to be working fine up until then reporting an average of something around 11.3-5 mph.  Oh well - not a big drama - the mile counter still worked and that was of more interest to me.  I could always work out average speed at the end easily enough.

North Uist is definitely far more sparsely populated than Lewis and Harris (and they weren't exactly jam-packed!).  It feels very much more remote.  The roads were fantastic - like being in an American road movie with the road going in straight lines for miles and miles - you could see it stretching off into the distance.

I arrived into Lochmaddy pretty hungry indeed.  The town is not that pretty and is dominated by the ferry port over to Skye really.  However, there is a fantastic arts centre there with a great cafe - where I feasted on cheese and ham toasties and the wickedly sweet Malteser and white chocolate cake!  There were some interesting exhibits in there and whilst I am not one for heavy duty art, the video piece with the polar bear watching the sunset in Uist was amusing (it wasn't a real polar bear - it was someone in a polar bear costume.  I wouldn't be keen on cycling around the island if there were real polar bears roaming free).  They were advertising their forthcoming Andy Goldsworthy exhibition - and if you happen to be in North Uist between 6th September and 28th November, then I think it will be well worth seeing as his work is inspirational.

As I left the cafe, I saw the yellow VW camper family coming into the car park - gave them a wave.

On I went towards Clachan.  You pass the burial cairn at Langass along the way - and this really is a massive impressive structure.  It is a 5000 year old communal  burial chamber.  It is one of the oldest standing buildings in Europe.  Standing is a strong term - it's a bit of a jumble!  You can still clearly see the entrance and peer into it - the passageway looks good and safe and you could crawl in, but it is highly advised against in every guidebook I read.  I decided not to risk it - particularly on my own in the middle of nowhere!

I reached Clachan where there's a pretty good shop.  Picked up more food and drank a can of diet coke outside with another cyclist (there were two other cyclists on the other bench - so four cyclists in total - a record for this trip!).  John was from the Isle Of Man and doing the same trip as me, but south to north.  He, too, was planning to stay on Berneray tonight.  He set off and I finished my can of drink.  I caught up with him, and the other two cyclists and passed them all on a climb.

The scenery was magnificent, great beaches, lots of machair.  There are also some sections of forest - not seen many trees over the past week, so quite unusual!  The winds were getting pretty tough though.

I rode on for a while and then stopped for lunch at a lovely little beach in Hosta.  The council (I guess) had gone to the trouble of putting picnic tables near the beach - trouble is the sand had blown up and the seat of the bench was now at ground level - so not very comfy!

As I was getting ready to move on the two cyclists I had passed earlier pulled down the lane and onto this beach - they were planning to camp at Berneray hostel as well - though were now considering wild camping on one of the beaches.

Coming round the north of the island there were more great beaches and some beautiful blackhouses.  Finally I reached Solas where there is a surprisingly large Co-Operative.  I bought food and the paper before heading on and back to Berneray.

I caught up with John again and we rode together to the hostel.  Berneray is a beautiful island and worth the trip.  Apparently, our future king, Charles, loves it there and has come and lived in a croft house as a crofter with only the locals and Buckingham Palace being aware of it.  We reached the hostel and it really was in a great location.  The hostel itself was two thatched cottages and there was plenty of space to camp.  I elected to go higher up and next to the beach - hoping that the midges would be less vicious up there.

It was a pretty decent end to the day, so I sat and read the paper, drank tea and watched little birds (could be plovers, I am rubbish with identifying stuff though) running up and down the sea front in groups.  Sometimes they would run in a line following each other and sometimes they'd run in a line next to each other - they reminded me of the police when they are conducting a fingertip search!

The location really is fantastic and my midge gamble seemed to pay off - there were not many up where I was, but when I went down to the hostel to do my washing up they were swarming away outside the hostel door - you had to run through a thick black cloud of them to get in!

The german guy and John were both in there, so chatted for a while.  The lady who is the hostel warden came over, so paid the bill etc.  She was chatting with someone about the re-thatching of the hostel.  Currently, the roof had a load of batons on it, but no thatch.  Apparently, it was meant to have been done last year and had been prepared, but then the crop of the rush (I think) they use had not been good enough, so they were waiting to see if this year's crop was better.  It made me think about how connected to the land and nature you are here.  Typically, within reason, we now expect to be able to get what we want, when we want if we have money - but here was a lifestyle that relied on far simpler principles and I liked the idea.  Rather than getting worked up about it or getting the crop from somewhere further afield, they'd just wait another year (I suppose they can not wait indefinitely, but still).  I work with the insanely demanding super-rich for a living - I would love to see their reaction to the concept of a crop not being good enough.

I sprinted past the midges back to my tent and went to bed with a real soft spot for this little corner of the islands.

I don't know how long I had known of St. Kilda - but it felt like somewhere I had always been aware of and this was just too good an opportunity to miss.  Although it was quite expensive (£160 for the day), it really is a unique place that not many people get the chance to visit.

For those who are not aware of St. Kilda, it is a group of small islands and sea stacks about 45 west of North Uist.  The islands have been inhabited, on and off, for many 1000s of years.  Their isolation led to distinct customs and even unique animal species.  The most recent islanders lived mainly by catching seabirds for food and enjoyed a tough existence on this island on the edge of the world.  After many people leaving, the final 36 people asked to be evacuated in the 1930s and the island was abandoned.  It is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site for both cultural and natural interest.  The islands are now owned by The National Trust for Scotland and are the ultimate getaway.

There is plenty of information here and here.

After a good hearty bowl of porridge and a cup of coffee, a quick shower and then I wandered down to the pier.  I turned up about 7:45 and Angus was there - but no boat!  He explained that his boat (which is in it's first season and cost over £400000!) hit something on the way back last night and had broken it's propeller.  He was awaiting a spare part and the boat was going up on a slipway later that day.

My heart sank - but then he explained that his old boat (which he'd sold to the guys at Sea Harris) was luckily not out that day, so Seamus and Coinneach of Sea Harris was going to take us that day.  His old boat sat the same number of people (12) but is not as large or powerful as his new boat, but it was perfectly fine by me.

We all boarded - it was an interesting bunch of people, a couple of Japanese tourists, some locals, a couple of Danish students, other people traveling around the isles.

Off we went into beautiful sunshine.  I was rather pleased to see the sea was looking very flat.  I am not a great sailor and was worried that the 3 hour trip would be very tough.  I had taken some anti-sickness pills but still I know how easily I can get ill.  We gently left Leverburgh and passed a series of little islands.  Some of them had seals relaxing in the sunshine.

As we left the Sound Of Harris, Seamus opened up the taps and got the boat up to speed - the 700HP engine could easily make the boat cruise at about 17-18 Knots.

The trip was very smooth and I enjoyed the sun as we all hung out on the back deck of the boat (near the back is also where the boat is moving the least, so minimised risk of sea sickness).

After about an hour and three quarters, a very, very small hump was visible on the horizon.  This was the first sighting of the islands.  But we still had another hour or so to go!  The journey was interrupted by a school of common dolphins joining us for a brief while - it was great to see them jumping in and out of our wake.  Sadly, I could not get a photo of them.  There's an awful lot of marine life in these waters and they regularly see basking sharks, minke whales, killer whales (orca) and a whole range of dolphins.  Today would hopefully be a good day to see whales as the sea was so flat.

The islands got bigger and bigger until you could start to make out the different islands - there are three major islands in St. Kilda - Hirta (the largest and the one where people had lived), Soay and Boreray.  There are also several sea stacks including Stac Lee and Stac An Armin (the tallest sea stack in the UK at 196 metres).

Finally, we came towards Hirta and Village Bay.  There was a beautiful sailing boat in the bay - this is used for a three day trip to islands (one day out, stay on-board, one day on the island, one day back - all fully catered etc.).  There was also a reminder of just how harsh this spot is with the wreck of the Spinningdale lying on it's side in the bay - this ran ashore in February and made headlines around the world with the fear of rats getting onto the island and destroying the bird colonies.  It's now been drained of fluids and will, hopefully, be salvaged next year as it is a little bit of a blot on the landscape and not so good for the UNESCO status!

We dropped anchor and headed to the jetty in a small dinghy (the boat can not come alongside the jetty to eliminate the risk of rats getting from larger boats to the island) and were then met by Bill Shaw the National Trust Warden.  He gave us a quick introduction to the island and explained a few things - there were a few areas we could not visit as there is a quite large military presence on the island.  I was pleased that there are now toilets on the island that can be used by visitors (my guide book had said that this was not the case!).  He explained about a whole load of temporary fencing around the island - this was because there were 16 academics studying the soay sheep on the island.  Soay sheep are an ancient breed and represent a window into early domesticated animals.  They are a lot smaller than sheep we see on the mainland and there were poeple measuring them, studying their behavior etc.  The ranger seemed to take delight in tales of these highly qualified academics running around catching sheep!

The weather was superb - really quite hot and sunny indeed.

After hearing from Bill, we were allowed to do our own thing for the next 5 or 6 hours.  People obviously had different priorities and some people went straight off towards the bigger hills (Connachair is the tallest hill on the island) whilst others headed into the village.  I headed towards the village - via the cliffs where it was possible to photograph Spinningdale properly.

The first site is the store house and gun.  The store was used to store feathers - this was one of the 'currencies' the islanders used to pay their rent to the landowner.  The gun was built in the First World War to protect the island from attack by U-Boat (the island was shelled in 1918 to try and destroy the radio masts).

From the store, you pick up the street and walk towards the Kirk (church) and schoolroom.  Both were very plain and simple buildings - inside and out.

The street is a fascinating mix of new and old buildings.  The newer houses were built in the 1860s and replace the older blackhouses.  Of these newer houses, National Trust working parties have re-roofed 6 of them and made them habitable for people working on the island.  You can not go into these houses (as they are in use by the sheep counters as their living quarters), but you can go into any of the abandoned houses - both the blackhouses and the new houses.  Inside many of the houses are plaques showing who lived there at the point of final evacuation in 1930 - it's moving to see the names and think of the many generations of these families who'd lived on the island.  Tellingly, most of the plaques indicate that there were not many men left on the island at the time of evacuation.

One thing that quickly strikes you are the cleits.  These are storage buildings and look like small blackhouses - they were used to store the birds they'd hunted, ropes, wood (very rare commodity!), peats etc.  There are around 1300 cleits on the island - and they are everywhere.  Even as you look up onto the horizon of the large hills, you see them.  Each family might own around 30-50 cleits and it was the owner's responsibility to make the cleit stock-proof.  If a sheep got into your cleit and died, you had to pay the owner compensation.

The islanders menfolk would meet in the street each morning (except Sunday) to discuss what work needed doing that day.  By necessity it was a very co-operative lifestyle.

There's a museum in one of the restored houses with lots of information on life on St. Kilda - truly fascinating.  I finished my walk up the street and decided to head towards the Gap or Saddle - this is the bit between Conachair and Oiseval hills and is good for views of the village and looking over towards Boreray.  There were dozens of cleits up there still.  The views of the village were incredible.  The cliffs even here at the saddle were very high - nothing compared to those around the back of Conachair - something like 427 metres high - the highest cliffs in the UK.  I sat in the sun and ate my lunch looking down on the village - it was a very enjoyable experience indeed.

After lunch, I headed down the hill and towards the other side of the island towards Dun.  There were lots of the soay sheep here and it must have been a lot of fun chasing them again here!

I walked up towards the Mistress Stone - one of two locations where the men of the island would show off their balancing skills in order to impress potential wives.  I didn't fancy trying it myself!

Time on the island was running out, so I wandered down to the little shop - there were lots of great books there, but I was not able to buy any due to lack of room on the bike - I will order them on Amazon when I get home.

We got back on the boat with a cup of tea and some ginger cake waiting for us (ginger is good for sea-sickness).

In the harbour at this point was a RIB - apparently, you can get from Lochmaddy (in North Uist) to St Kilda in an hour and a half.  I did not fancy that idea at all - RIBs are pretty scary and bumpy!

We set sail to what was promised to be even more exciting than being on Hirta - must be good!  So we sailed towards Boreray via Stac Lee (a massive sea stack) and Stac An Armin (the tallest sea stack in the UK) - both of which have enormous gannet colonies.  Both of these stacks were visited by the islanders to collect birds.  There were bothies on both stacks.  In 1727 a group of 10 men and boys ended up getting stranded on Stac An Armin for 9 months!  The reason was that the entire population of Hirta had died of smallpox whilst they were on their (planned) 2 week stay on the stack.  There are 74 man-made structures recorded on Stac An Armin - but it looked like a horrific place to stay for any length of time!

The birds were so noisy and there were millions of them flying around.  Even on this relatively calm day, the swell near the stacks was huge.  We went around the back of Boreray and there were hundreds of puffins sat on the sea and diving down for fish - amazing sight!

We headed back towards Leverburgh.  The trip back was a little rougher and a couple of people were ill.  I did not feel great - but was not ill.  I spent time chatting with one of the Danish girls who was doing a PhD in Edinburgh on the ecology of the machair - so she gets out to the Hebrides 6 or 7 times a year!  Coinneachtold us about all the whales and so on he'd see over the years sailing around the Hebrides.  It really is incredible how much marine life is out there.  Sadly, today we weren't being lucky.

I do have to say I felt very emotional leaving the islands - but I also knew I would have to come back some time in my life.  I am already thinking about applying to go on a work party on the island which would mean 2/3 weeks on the island helping with refurbishing the houses etc.  That really would be a great escape from the world!

The day really was unforgetable and the islands will probably haunt me for the rest of my life.  I got back to my tent very tired, slightly sun-burnt and terribly happy.  Today will undoubtably be the highlight of the trip - it has been a highlight of my life really!

A while back I was contacted by The Lighthouse via Flickr, asking my permission to use a few of my photos in the book. I received a couple of copies of Where We Are through the post the other day, including all the photos I'd said they could use.

The book itself is quite nice, paperback journal size. It's divided up into two parts. The first part goes through each Scottish city, following the same format:

• a short essay about design in that city, by various authors
• a categorised list of cool places in the city, e.g. nice cafes, shops, architecture, local design landmarks etc
• street map of the city

The lists of places is pretty much on the mark, all good places that I've heard of or like the sound of.

The second part of the book is a profile of 15 different designers working in Scotland. These consist of a single page feature, an ink illustration of the designer(s), and a few pages of pictures of their work.  Designers featured include graphic designers Graven Images, textile designers Timorous Beasties, illustrator Nigel Peake and computer games developer Realtime Worlds.

The book uses photos from Flickr throughout, which is a nice idea. I assume this kept their costs down. It also means it is full of interesting photos of a variety of styles and standards. I don't think the three photos of mine they selected were necessarily great photos even by my own standards, and I'm sure they could have found better photos of some of the locations. Maybe the difference was I use a Creative Commons licence on all my photos.

The book is launched September 3, and should be in shops soon after (although it's not listed on Amazon yet).  From their press release:

Where We Are features the people and places that are creating Scotland’s new design landscape. Introductions to fifteen of our best designers reflect the increasing success of designers who choose to live their lives and build their design businesses in Scotland. These are accompanied by contributions from design-conscious locals, who know their cities inside out, telling you the unique places to visit, sleep, eat and shop.

The guidebook focuses on design and architecture alongside the strengths and successes of the Six Cities Design Festival 2007. Created as a practical legacy document, the book promotes the work of the best of Scotland’s designers through a series of insightful essays and photography. It includes opinion pieces on current design issues, profiles of the most original and inventive Scottish designers, full city listings of where to go and what to do alongside detailed maps.

Designed by Marque Creative the book is a beautiful example of what Scottish graphic design companies can produce. Specially commissioned illustrations are included alongside a series of photographs that have been specially sourced and selected from Flickr. These create visual portraits of the cities illustrating the listings which have all been compiled from recommendations received from architecture and design aware citizens creating diverse and personalised selections.

Returning to the office after lunch today, I watched in alarmed fascination as a man wove drunkenly through the Hampstead Road traffic, staggering and limping across the road towards University College Hospital, lurching around the cars, trucks and buses, which barely acknowledged him.  Thankfully, he reached the other side.

At times, I sense a pervasive sadness in the air, as if the world is sighing.  People are going through the changes in their lives, friends are moving on, my thoughts drift in the wind.  It's hard to know which direction to go.

I came across this scene in Craigieburn, a lovely garden on a rain-soaked hillside in south-west Scotland.  We didn't get the full tour of the gardens, as it was raining hard, and we had already climbed up beside the Grey Mare's Tail to Loch Skene - a wild and beautiful place.

By the time we reached the gardens, our thoughts were mainly focused on tea and scones back at the hotel.  But we stayed long enough to buy a few plants, and to admire these Buddhist prayer flags, hung in the garden by the Nepali family who manage it.  The term "prayer flags" is to some extent misleading, as the words written on the many-coloured flags and banners are not invoking a deity, but expounding the dharma, the wise, truthful and compassionate teachings of the Buddha.  As they flutter in the wind, they broadcast the Four Noble Truths - the essential ideas of Buddhism - and send them drifting everywhere, for everyone.

Happiness is a state of mind, so the real source of happiness must lie within the mind, not in external conditions.

The descent towards Tarbert was very fast and steep - I saw cyclists at the bottom heading up.  Rather them than me!  Right at the bottom of that descent (I missed the turning with the speed I was doing) is a turn off towards Huisinis - this is meant to be a beautiful road and I wish I had time to cycle down every road, but I didn't - however, I did want to see the whaling station at Bunavoneader (Bun Abhainn Eadarra) so I quickly flicked round and headed about a mile down this road.  The whaling station is an interesting spectacle - there's not much to see other than a large chimney and the ramp where the whales would be dragged onto land to be butchered.  I don't know much about the UK's whaling industry and there is potential there for some kind of information centre or something.

On towards Tarbert.  I had promised myself a fry-up breakfast (assuming, of course, that there would be somewhere to have one) as I hadn't eaten anything this morning in my desire to get away from the midge hell of Rhenigidale!  The midge risotto of last night had not been that filling either - so I was hungry!  The last three miles into Tarbert seemed to take forever.  I arrived and quickly saw that it was not a very exciting place - however, it did have several good things including a cash machine (first one I had seen since Stornoway) and a tea room.  Sadly, the tea room did not open until 10:30 - so I went to look in the tourist information office and also got some much needed funds from the bank!

The First Fruits Tearoom in Tarbert is a little gem - I enjoyed a great breakfast there (and reminded myself how much I like good black pudding!) including the first good coffee of the trip (other than those made on my own espresso maker!).  Thoroughly enjoyed that breakfast - oh, and the fresh orange juice was good as well!

The guy from the family I had seen near Uig beach popped in to get a coffee and a cyclist who'd stayed at Rhenigidale also had his breakfast there.

Great breakfast - set me up for the day!  Finished up and popped into the grocers to get lunch etc. before setting off.

I caught up with the guy who'd been in the hostel - he was a teacher from Portree in Skye, we rode together for a while - he was a nice guy with plenty of good advice on the islands.  We parted ways as I wanted to visit Luskentyre (Losgaintir) as it was meant to be a fantastic beach.  I was not disappointed by the beach at all.  It really was beautiful - blue sea, mountains in the distance and white sands - spectacular.  I walked along the beach and it was easy to imagine that one was in the Caribbean or something!  The sun was even out nicely now.  This beach is a real treasure and would be great to spend time on if you had kids etc.  It was not crowded at all - and a few people were swimming in that clear sea.

The rest of the trip towards Leverburgh was very pretty - I had elected to take the west coast (this was the main route down to Leverburgh) rather than the east coast (known as The Bays).  The ride around the Bays was a backup plan for tomorrow if I did not get to St. Kilda - though the weather appeared to be on my side for now!  There is more camping in Harris than is generally advertised - one could camp at what looked like a good site at Horgabost and there was some camping in the Bays for sure.  There were great sections of dunes and beaches - very pretty indeed.

Leverburgh is a nice little town.  The supermarket was pretty well stocked - I picked up some further anti-midge protection - a citronella candle and some bog Myrtle stuff that is supposed to keep them off.  I caught up with the white VW camper family in the supermarket - they'd camped at the Uig site last night rather than Kneep and said it was great.  They could not believe I was on a bike as they had first chatted with me only a day and a half ago and about 100 miles away.  It is funny how you see people time and time again - there was a family in a yellow VW camper who I had first noticed on the ferry from Ullapool - the dad wore short shorts in all weather and did not look like the kind of man who would paint flowers on his yellow VW camper - but you never can tell!  I had seen them again in Shawbost and Calanais.  I guess people follow similar routes whether they are in cars or on bikes.  The car people just have a little more time to do stuff than cyclists who have to sit on the bike for several hours a day to go the 50 miles or whatever.

I went to the bunkhouse I was staying at - and was mighty impressed.  Ruari (the owner) has done a great job with this place and I can highly recommend it in every way - I camped, but the bunk rooms looked great as well.  It was very colourful inside with lots of interesting bits of shipwrecks on the walls and built into the design.  The Am Bothan website is here.

I decided not to pitch my tent quite yet as the weather was still pretty good - but I ate a little sandwich.  At this point there was a quite heavy shower - hopefully this was not a bad sign for my St. Kilda trip tomorrow!  Anyway - the rain stopped, so I left my bags at the bunkhouse and headed towards Rodal (Roghadal) to see St Clement's church.  It was the first time in nearly a week that I'd ridden the bike without bags - boy did it feel funny and almost wrong!  It felt horribly twitchy.  Weird how quickly you get used to a sluggish, heavy monster!

The church is fascinating - it almost grows out of the stone and is one of the most impressive churches on the islands.  It is quite eerie inside as it is completely empty - no pews or anything.  There is the mid 16th century grave one of the MacLoeds designed for himself about 20 years before he died - very impressive indeed.

I headed back to Leverburgh (hitting a highly irresponsible 42.3 mph on the way back - I'd previously kept my speeds under about 35 mph due to the weight of bags and the thought of stopping it).

I needed to get a bag for St. Kilda - you have to carry everything you need for the day (food, clothes etc.) as there's nothing there.  I could have taken a pannier - but it'd have been a pain.  Anyway, a weird little shop/post office supplied me with a lovely cloth bag - it was so tacky, but it was the best I could do......

Pleased with my purchase and looking forward to being the most stylish person on the trip, I returned to the bunk house and pitched my tent.  There was a group of divers staying at the bunkhouse and they had caught some great looking crayfish - it was a bit distressing to watch them kill it in the kitchen - but I guess that's nature!

I managed to charge my phone and camera batteries and also called the people running the St Kilda trip (Kilda Cruises) and they confirmed that the trip was going ahead.  I was so excited!  I had to ring my mum as she'd sent me a nice text saying she was crossing her fingers that I would get there!

So I made my dinner and then prepared sandwiches etc. for the next day.  It was going to be an early start (8 am leaving the pier), so I went to bed.  I did, however, get up in the night to use the loo and was reminded that there are a LOT of stars out there.  It was a near full moon, and the skies were clear and I could see thousands of stars - incredible.  I stood out there looking up for a few minutes and realised that we do miss so much living in cities.  In London, you're lucky to spot half a dozen bright stars due to the light pollution.  Amazing!