Lewis, Harris & North Uist

Monday 14th September

Two wet days. 

Yesterday morning  we  set off south from North Shawbost in heavy rain which continued most of the day. 
We had a quick stop to look at a black house village which has been restored. Apparently some of them are let as holiday cottages. Needless to say we couldn’t walk down the street what with Covid and the Sabbath. 
Black house village

 I had been looking forward to the views on the drive south and they were certainly dramatic. Cloud topped dark mountains with sides running with torrents of water but we did get the occasional good view. The road was very quiet, only heathens like us on them!!



We stopped for lunch close to the beautiful beaches on West Harris where I had hoped we would stay the few pitches there are are full until the end of the month   



The  one hour ferry from Leverburgh to Berneray was an interesting crossing in pouring rain with spray from the waves crashing onto the front of the van. Michael had a sleep and I did my knitting! It was then a half hour drive from Berneray crossing the causeway to North Uist to our campsite at Carinish.  We were directed to a hard standing overlooking a sea inlet and looked forward to a nice view!!! 😂

The wind and rain really came in and we had an atrocious night with Force 6 to Force 8 winds (gale force). I was awake until well after 1.0am while Mr P slept through it all! Fortunately this is a sturdy van and we came through unscathed but the noise of the wind,  the gusts and the van buffeting about was scary. By the time Mr P got up the wind had abated a bit and I think he wondered what I was fussing about!

After a lazy start we set off to explore more of the island. The rain was continuous soft drizzly wetting stuff. First we visited Kallin harbour just 10 minutes to the east of us. This is a working shell fishing port and we were able to buy a coffee in the little harbour cafe cum chandlers 

Killan  harbour 

Lochmaddy was the next destination, a ferry to Skye leaves from here,  but we wanted to see the Arts Centre. 
There was an excellent exhibition of photographs from the late 19th and early 20th century taken by an Archie Chisholm who was Procurator Fiscal for Lochmaddy for many years.  For me the photos of evictions  were very powerful but all the photos told a story about life on the islands at that time. 


View at Lochmaddy 

After lunch in the cafe ( M had the last crab platter!) we set off again to drive round the top of the island to the RSPB nature reserve. Most of the roads were single track with passing places.  The little RSPB Centre at Balranald was closed with a notice on the door saying the nature trails were closed too. Talk about risk averse, it is wide open  coastal machair ! We had a short walk but the rain came on heavier so it was once again time to retreat to the van and head back to the campsite. 


Plenty of space to social distance here at Hougharry beach! 

Tomorrow we are driving and ferrying to Barra and hope for the weather to improve. As a friend of mins said currently it is very “McScottish”!

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